Panicked Haitians screamed and trembled with fear Wednesday as a massive aftershock rattled the capital, cursing God
Pastor Dale Morgan
Panicked Haitians screamed and trembled with fear Wednesday as a massive
aftershock rattled the capital, cursing God, others screamed that they
were all cursed -- and all asking when the suffering will end.
*
by Staff Writers
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Jan 20, 2010
Panicked Haitians screamed and trembled with fear Wednesday as a massive
aftershock rattled the capital, cursing God, others fearing they were
cursed -- and all asking when the suffering will end.
The shaking lasted several seconds as Port-au-Prince was rocked at 6:03
am (1103 GMT) by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake, the largest aftershock
since the initial January 12 quake, which measured 7.0.
In Petionville, in the east of the capital, residents ran through the
streets screaming. In front of the hotel Kinam, terrified survivors
expressed relief no one had been killed. "Thank you eternal Lord, thank
you eternal Lord," broken voices repeated in Creole.
The aftershock knocked down several buildings already damaged by the
catastrophic quake eight days ago. The surviving wall of the main
cathedral collapsed, complete with a stained-glass window of Jesus.
"All Haitians are going to die because they are cursed," said a homeless
mother camped amidst the squalor of the Port-au-Prince rubble, where
countless bodies still lay in their dusty tombs.
"I was in the middle of eating and then things shook very strongly,"
said Sylliona Gyna, a heavily pregnant young woman in a squalid camp of
6,000 survivors at Place Saint-Pierre. "People were shouting, 'My God,
My God, why again?'
"Everyone knows it's not finished. I believe everyone will die. It's
nature. It's not God, God is not wicked," she said.
A woman interrupted her: "Yes it is him, yes it is God," she said,
pointing her finger towards the heavens. "God wants to destroy all
Haitians because they are bad, because they are cursed."
The woman, Eleude Joseph, a mother of two, was in shock after the latest
quake, which pushed many anxious Haitians -- already haunted by grim
memories of a disaster they find impossible to fathom -- even closer to
the edge.
Louis Saurel, an artist with paintings on display, was not sure he could
explain it all. "I think it is God who wills all this, but I am not
certain. Some people say that it is nuclear tests. It's possible, I know
nothing."
A resigned Patrick Damiens Boucherea explained how he had been hoping to
meet up on Wednesday with 20 workers to clear away some of the endless
ruins.
"They called me after the tremor to say: 'Engineer, we cannot come.'
They are frightened more buildings will collapse and they don't want to
leave their homes."
A three-story house next to the French embassy in downtown
Port-au-Prince that had been badly damaged by the initial quake
collapsed about 40 minutes after the latest huge tremor.
A dozen or so one-time occupants, now camping a few meters from the
building, were unhurt but watched in dismay as the edifice came tumbling
down.
"The house was still standing but since it had cracks people no longer
lived inside," one of them, Antony Lamothe, told AFP.
In Carrefour, a suburb on the outskirts of the capital, a French medical
worker saw another two buildings collapse, again mercifully claiming no
casualties.
Aftershocks of varying strengths have punctuated the lives of the
terrified residents of Port-au-Prince since the January 12 quake in
which at least 75,000 people were killed and one million left homeless.
The day after the catastrophe, rescuers trying to save a baby from the
rubble in central Port-au-Prince beat a hasty retreat as the first main
aftershock caused widespread panic.
The same evening, further jolts sent tens of thousands of Haitians
rushing for the high ground fearing their capital would be drowned in
another tsunami. A preacher, shouting to the panicked masses, announced,
"the end of the world."
On Saturday, in the capital's biggest slum of Cite-Soleil, the ground
shook as dozens of Haitians went to fetch water from under a bridge.
Everyone fled in panic before returning with trepidation after the
tremors ceased.
"As I have a diploma, my workers always ask me how long it is going to
last," said Boucherea. "But I know nothing."
In Petionville, Midi Enock said he "hopes that God will bring it all to
an end."