PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (ANS) -- The following accounts are all told from the first-hand experience of Christian Aid Mission (CAM) staff member, Joanna Seibel.

A dazed young survivor enjoys a meal

With all of the atrocities that have been reported since the fateful 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Tuesday afternoon, January 12, 2010, so many personal stories have gone unheard. Joanna Seibel’s first-hand dramatic account gives a more detailed picture of the tragedy that has taken place within the last three and a half days.

In Titanyen, Haiti, a village not far from the Haitian capital, Christian Aid Mission staff members found themselves suddenly startled by massive and violent shakings. Joanna Seibel was among them. As she instantly realizes that this was to be a dangerous earthquake, she runs to the next room to grab the baby Kiana, before escaping from the crumbling house.

With the sudden, rude awakening of cupboard doors and drawers flying open, dishes crashing on the floor, supplies tumbling everywhere, the biggest shock came when Seibel dashed outside of the house and witnessed the chaos of wailing people and dust rolling toward the mountain from the earth’s shakes.

A Haitian woman being rescued from the rubble

Seibel reports that at around 5:00 pm, she left the house with her colleagues and drove out to immediately re-join with members of Global Outreach Haiti Mission’s team after the earthquake stopped. When making it to the clinic, Seibel saw trucks pulling in loaded with people who had come to help at the small and only clinic in this village of Haiti. She saw one of her colleagues, Melanie, take off and began cleaning up burn victims who had come from a burning flour mill. Seibel entered inside the clinic and witnessed tons of children lined up against the wall, wailing on the floors, and more were flooding in.

She ended up with a doctor and instantly volunteered to assist him in every way possible. Seibel saw little boys and girls with deep gashes all over their fragile bodies, some as deep as 4-5 inches on their heads which looked like loose flaps. The heart-wrenching atmosphere worsened with the loss of blood everywhere, people crying out, “Jesus! Help me!” broken limbs, “bent and grotesquely lumpy,” as she describes, and the sight of dying people all around. The entire time being there, Seibel says that were small tremors that shook the clinic, even up to six hours later following the initial quake. She says that some of these tremors were around 5.0 in magnitude.

Seibel also saw more of her colleagues rush out of the clinic to drive to the nearest sites where buildings had collapsed and where people reported of knowing victims trapped underneath the concrete rubble.
 

A street scene amid the devastation

Later on in the evening, Seibel finally returned back to the CAM guest house, and upon seeing the demolished mess, thought of how insignificant the loss of the house was compared to the destruction outside. Siebel said that her and her colleagues were up all night until 3:30am helping find buried people and getting them out. She described the horror of even being able to hear “tapping coming from down under, the dead lying around, dead and injured being pushed in wheelbarrows, people bedding down in the streets for the night, multiple people trapped in a human puzzle down under, that they could see them, but not free them.”

Wednesday, January 13, the following day, Seibel’s report continues as she informs that there were still tremors from the earth all around. Everyone, herself included, who had been aiding in rescue missions were exhausted and drained. The aftermath started to materialize by the evening when women began settling down in the streets with their mattresses, going to sleep with at least 2-4 children by their side.

“They are opting to sleep outside rather than in because of continued tremors. No one wants to sleep inside,” she says. By the end of the day, the village had turned into a “disaster zone,” as she calls it, because now the 30-40 mothers with children had grown to about 180 in total. Everyone was starving. Food started coming in and the Titanyen cooks made rice with leaves in them for everyone to eat. More food had come throughout the day by the truck loads.

The village people scrounged for bread and peanut butter, crackers, etc. Blankets as well were being distributed and the needs for babies such as pampers, milk, and hats to shade them from the heat of the day. Seibel states that evenings are apparently the best time to seek out buried people because the rescuers can actually hear people knocking and calling in the quiet night. By nightfall, Seibel learned of the looters who had come around to steal from the Caribbean Markets rather than help dig for survivors. The Haitian police had made their way to regulate and keep order on the robbers who had come to prey.

One of the many dead bodies seen in the street

By Thursday, Seibel had heard estimates of how many were dead in Haiti. But even with the disputes of whether it was 50,000 or 100,000 dead, she thought, “How can anyone ever know? The dead litter the streets, hang from destroyed buildings, lie under fallen walls, and are buried under rubble.” Thursday was when the smell of death had become apparent.

Seibel’s colleagues had come back from driving around in rescue efforts and said that they constantly were getting stuck behind dump trucks full of bodies that would just dump loads off the back roads.

“It sounds and looks so inhumane,” she begins, “but what are the options? How do you handle thousands of unidentified bodies affected by the ravages of time and heat?” The exhaustion of the long day carried over into the evenings. Survivors were more restless because they feared going to sleep since with all the tremors still occurring sporadically, “the feeling reminds me of if you would lie in the water just at the edge and the waves just gently rock/nudge you. That’s how it feels.” Seibel explains having to deal with the weariness of bawling children, “they can barely go to the bathrooms alone, even the older ones.”

She and her colleague Deborah put them to sleep and head out around 5am to the Dominican Republic border to help with the rescue of 60-70 children buried alive in a collapsed school building. At this time, another tremor occurs.

With the dawn of the fourth day approaching, Seibel ends her most recently updated report with the anticipation of the USA Crew arriving at any moment. She is hyper, and planning out how much food they will be getting to hold them over for a whole another day. Earlier in her report, she asks of those who are reading to: “Please pray for emotional and physical strength for those helping with rescuing,” as it is that she is on the rescue side of this disastrous and devastating situation.

Note: All photos were supplied by Christian Aid Ministries.

Danielle Miskell, 22, is a 2009 graduate of Vanguard University of Southern California. Having just earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications and Journalism, she is both currently living and working in Costa Mesa. She recently finished a pro bono position at local radio program, 101.5 KOCI LPFM Newport Beach, Costa Mesa where she volunteered as the On-Field Camera Reporter and assistant producer to their summer show, “Brunch at the Back Bay Bistro.” She is now moving on to pursue other opportunities, among them writing for ASSIST News Service and interning at ABC7 News. This feature is her first officially published article both since she graduated from university and for ANS. Danielle can be contacted by e-mail at: danielle.miskell@gmail.com