With sorrow in their hearts and fearful of an uncertain future, Haitians are marking the moment a year ago when the earth convulsed and shattered their nation.
“It’s a day of reflection and of prayer,” said Roger Jean, 64, who lost his wife and three children when a magnitude 7 earthquake tore through the most densely populated corner of the impoverished Caribbean nation.
More than 220,000 people were killed and 1.3 million left homeless when the earth heaved for a few terrifying seconds at 4:53pm on Jan. 12 last year, collapsing homes and businesses, churches and schools — leaving hellish, nightmarish scenes of devastation and suffering.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I am addressing a special prayer for Haiti to God: a prayer for Haiti to change, that Haiti live again,” Jean said.
Thousands of people gathered outside the ruins of the city’s cathedral on Wednesday for a solemn Catholic Mass, their hymns floating across the rubble.
The women wore white dresses, the men crisp shirts, as incense wafted over the crowds, amid a soft chorus of Hallelujah.
The laughter and smiling so common when Haitians gather gave way to grim faces and shudders as people restrained tears. One woman, suddenly overcome, began to shriek repeatedly, before relatives sat her down.
The small nation of about 10 million people has experienced decades of misery, bloodshed and political upheaval, but the earthquake has dealt it a crushing blow and a year later, little has been rebuilt.
“In one of the poorest countries in the world ... we made a major step backwards,” Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said as the nation somberly marked its grim anniversary.
From early morning, national television replayed footage of the quake’s aftermath, the shocking images of mangled corpses and screaming survivors triggering painful memories.
Former US president Bill Clinton, one of the main figures coordinating a massive international aid effort, and Haitian President Rene Preval attended a ceremony to lay the first stone in a memorial park.
“This is going to be a place to honor the victims. We must not forget this,” Preval said, as dozens of white balloons were released, swept up within seconds into the sunny skies overhead. “We must keep united for the reconstruction of Haiti.”
But at a press conference later, Clinton and Bellerive were unable to say when the tent camps still housing hundreds of thousands of homeless would finally be emptied.
“I don’t blame people for being mad and frustrated. If I were still living in a camp like that after a year I would go crazy,” Clinton said, adding that half a million people had already been moved out of the camps.
The quake left no Haitian untouched. However, there was little in the way of organized national ceremonies, possibly reflecting the government’s broader inability to act in the wake of the tragedy.
A minute of silence called for at 4:53pm — the exact moment the quake struck last year — was only partially observed.
White-clad mourners, many shrieking with grief, gathered for a special Mass at the base of the damaged Notre Dame Cathedral. On the Champs de Mars public square where thousands of families now reside, other services were held.
Most treated Wednesday as a day of private mourning. People went to churches and few worked.
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