Pisco x 1000 = Port-au-Prince

I was in Lima, Peru on that fateful day in August 2007 when an 8.0 earthquake struck that country. (Wikipedia summary here).

 

A couple hours after reporting on the phone from Lima on the initial shock of it all, the next question was being asked, like it always is after the initial trauma of a quake: "Where is the epicentre?" 

 

Word was getting out on local radio that the epicentre was near a village called Pisco, about 150km south of Lima. But no journalists had actually reached Pisco at that moment. 

 

So myself, and my friends and journalist colleagues Guillermo Galdos, Luis Del Valle and Gino Amadori of Lima-based Pacha Films got in a car shortly after midnight the first day and started motoring towards Pisco.

 

A trip that should have taken a couple hours ended up taking all night, as the highway was collapsed in several places and bridges heavily damaged. The damage was worse the closer we got to Pisco, another ominous sign.

 

Eventually, the next day at some point - I can't remember exactly - we arrived in Pisco and none of us were prepared for what we saw. The city was flattened, dead bodies laid out in the streets under bed sheets and in the main square across from the church. Rubble blocked the roads. People who survived just walking around like zombies. 

 

Other survivors were digging with their hands looking for loved ones buried under the rubble.

 

The police station, mayor's office, fire station, even the morgue, collapsed.

 

Every single city service building was buried in rubble.

 

There were maybe 12 buildings standing in the entire village, I remember thinking to myself.

 

Those first few hours, the total number of international aide rescuers on scene: 0

 

Total number of firemen on scene, as I recall: Maybe 15, removing rocks form the collapsed main church, where it would turn out many of the victims were located. 

 

Amazingly my Brazil cell phone got a signal, to this day I have no idea how that could happen. I remember calling Al Jazeera's newsdesk in Washington DC and telling the editor who picked up, who had no idea the extent of the damage because there had been no first hand reporting out of Pisco at that point: " I don't want to over dramatise this, but the fact is Pisco, Peru as we know it, no longer exists."

 

Many of my colleagues started arriving in the following hours and days to Pisco in what began several weeks of intensive Al Jazeera and world media coverage to go along with a massive international mobilisation in Pisco involving just about every aid organisation on the planet, or so it seemed.

 

And just like Port-au-Prince today, there were serious security concerns as hundreds of criminals escaped from collapsed prisons.

 

But the point of this blog post is not about Pisco in 2007. It’s about Haiti, 2010.

 

But I can’t help, as I watch the images and hear the stories from Haiti, to think back to Pisco.

 

The scary part is what I put in the headline: Pisco x 1000 = Port-au-Prince.

 

What Haiti is dealing with is 1000 times more intense and dreadful in every way that poor Pisco dealt with in 2007.

 

Pisco was basically a very small scale Port-au-Prince. But that doesn’t mean the Pisco quake doesn’t offer some insights.

 

Primarily, as hard as it might be to imagine right now, eventually all the bodies will be cleared from the streets in Haiti - and hopefully given some sort of respectful burial every human being deserves.

 

Eventually the rubble will be cleared from the streets.

 

Eventually any survivors buried under fallen buildings will have either perished or have been pulled to safety.

 

Eventually there will be massive tent cities set up to feed and house people that need help.

 

Eventually every neighbourhood and city block will have been searched.

 

Eventually the airport will re-open in some capacity more than what it is now.

 

And, eventually, Haiti will not be the top story on the news bulletin. And maybe not even on the front page. This day will come at some point - maybe at various stages - but that day will arrive.

 

And when it does, Port-au-Prince will essentially be a flattened city with basic - very basic - order restored.

 

But then what? What next? Where do we go from here?

 

I won’t pretend to have those answers. And it's probably too early to even bring it up, but someone has to.

 

This cycle is what happened in Pisco, Peru. That is what happens after all of these horrific natural disasters.

 

Given the scope of what Haiti is dealing with…well, maybe none of us yet know the full scope of what Haiti is dealing with. Maybe we think we know, but we really don't. Maybe we won’t know until we get past this initial phase that has been so difficult to watch, play itself out the past six days.

 

Looking at Haiti today, I almost wish the situation was as manageable (in comparison) to Pisco back in 2007. And thinking back to the scene of all those lifeless bodies laying on the cobblestone streets of Pisco, I never thought I would ever in my life type those words.