Nine months after a massive quake hit Haiti, only two percent of debris has been cleared.
The quake that his Haiti on 12 January 2010 gave rise to an international outpouring of concern and charitable donations. But according to an Associated Press article, nine months on the country is struggling to clear the debris left by the disaster, hampering recovery and rebuilding work.
From the dusty rock mounds lining the streets to a National Palace that looks like it’s vomiting concrete from its core, rubble is one of the most visible reminders of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.
Rubble is everywhere in this capital city: cracked slabs, busted-up cinder blocks, half-destroyed buildings that still spill bricks and pulverized concrete onto the sidewalks. Some places look as though they have been flipped upside down, or are sinking to the ground, or listing precariously to one side.
By some estimates, the quake left about 25 million cubic metres (33 million cubic yards) of debris in Port-au-Prince — more than seven times the amount of concrete used to build the Hoover Dam. So far, only about two percent has been cleared, which means the city looks pretty much as it did a month after the Jan. 12 quake.
Government officials and outside aid groups say rubble removal is the priority before Haiti can rebuild. But the reasons why so little has been cleared are complex. And frustrating.
Heavy equipment has to be shipped in by sea. Dump trucks have difficulty navigating narrow and mountainous dirt roads. An abysmal records system makes it hard for the government to determine who owns a dilapidated property. And there are few sites on which to dump the rubble, which often contains human remains.
Also, no single person in the Haitian government has been declared in charge of the rubble, prompting foreign nongovernmental organizations to take on the task themselves. The groups are often forced to fight for a small pool of available money and contracts — which in turn means the work is done piecemeal, with little coordination.
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