NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The five-member BGR assessment team is on
the ground in Haiti, driving toward Port-au-Prince. They are accompanied by
Mark Rutledge, who has 26 years of experience serving as an International
Mission Board worker in Haiti. The team will be connecting with Haitian Baptist
leaders, surveying earthquake damage, and delivering relief supplies.
A strong aftershock measuring 6.1 in magnitude struck
Port-au-Prince at 6:03 a.m., Jan. 20, according to news reports. The shock sent
people scrambling for open ground as buildings damaged by last week’s quake
shuddered and rubble began falling to the ground. Eyewitnesses said people
already traumatized by the horrors of the past week cried and screamed at the
new tremor. More than 40 significant aftershocks have hit since the Jan. 12
quake.
Members of the assessment team reported they did not feel
the aftershock at their base in the Dominican Republic. However, Steve Leach, a
member of Round Grove Baptist Church in Miller, Mo., who operates an
independent hospital in northwest Haiti, reported the aftershock “brought down
some of the damaged buildings that were still standing and will keep anyone
from going back to what buildings are still standing for many days to
come. With so many severe aftershocks over the last week and now another
new quake, who knows when people who have a place to go will feel safe to
return there.”
Leach said about 1,200 refugees have come to the hospital
for treatment and he has been sending trucks into the capital to look for
survivors with family who live near the hospital.
“We live in a place that is about as far from the capital as
you can get and still be in Haiti and yet we have watched these very poor
people trying desperately to figure out a way to get their family members out
here so they can take care of them,” Leach said. “The truck drivers are less
and less willing to (drive into the city) as the situation in Port
deteriorates.”
Relief efforts are struggling to get essential relief
supplies to hundreds of thousands of desperate people, but destroyed infrastructure
and disorganization are hampering the effort. Officials are concerned that the
desperation people feel will boil over into violence. Looters by the hundreds
have been fighting each other with broken bottles, clubs and other weapons over
whatever goods they can still find in damaged stores.
“Pray specifically for God to give those in control wisdom
to direct the relief effort,” Leach said.
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