I’m watching the live television reports of flooding in Brisbane, Australia. Already the authorities are talking about their plans for clean-up, restoration of essential services and rebuilding. The time frame for this process is being estimated at two or three years.
January 12 marked the one year anniversary since the earthquake in Haiti. The recovery process is painfully slow.
A Boston.com pictorial journal of Haiti one year later is introduced with these words:
It’s been one year since the earth shook so violently below Port-au-Prince, Haiti, destroying and damaging hundreds of thousands of buildings and lives in mere moments. Twelve months of struggle and heartache have followed, with very little progress to show so far. Only five percent of the rubble has been cleared as crippling “indecision” has stalled reconstruction efforts, a recent report by humanitarian group Oxfam said. It’s not clear when Haiti will be fully rebuilt, with five years needed just to rehouse the government, a top minister recently told an AFP reporter. On this somber anniversary, here are some photos of (and by) Haitians as they continue to cope with the aftermath of such a massive disaster.
A laborer uses a sledgehammer in the demolition of a destroyed building on January 5, 2011 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images)
Achebelle Debora St. Til, 6, dances at the Festival of Hope, an evangelistic rally lead by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, at a soccer stadium in downtown Port-au-Prince January 9, 2011. (REUTERS/Allison Shelley)
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