PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Earthquakes do not respect social customs. They do not coddle the rich. They know nothing about the invisible lines that in Haiti keep the poor masses packed together in crowded slums and the well-to-do high up in the breezy hills of places like Pétionville.
And so it was with the devastating temblor that tore through Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, last week, toppling residences large and small, and trapping and traumatizing residents no matter where they stood on Haiti’s complicated social scale.
The large death toll, yet to be fully reckoned, included the archbishop of Haiti, senior government officials, prominent business leaders and working people like Seth Darius, a handyman at the Hotel Montana whose wife and brother stood outside the hotel’s wreckage mourning him.
“Our lives, our jobs, our existences, have been completely turned upside down,” said Cate Immacula, a protocol official for the prime minister.
President René Préval was the most vivid example of just how democratic natural disasters can be, his grand office at the presidential palace flattened and his home badly damaged. The dazed look in his eyes was that of every Haitian.
“It doesn’t matter how much you had, whether you lived in a shack or a mansion,” said Henry Y. Hogarth, whose middle-class home collapsed. “Now we have a level playing field. Everyone is starting from scratch.”
Before the quake hit, Haiti had one of the world’s greatest divides, and that is not expected to change. The elite will be able to dig into their savings to rebuild, or pay the air fare to relocate overseas. But politicians, big-business owners, well-off people who fly back and forth to visit relatives in the United States were clearly in distress along with the many Haitians who live hand-to-mouth even in normal times.
Harold Marzouka, a businessman who was worried that unrest was looming, chartered an 18-seat executive jet to fly his extended family to Miami. Standing around their luggage, they complained of nightmares and worried of aftershocks, the same things heard often among the people wandering aimlessly through the streets with their few possessions bundled in their arms.
“It’s time to get out,” said Mr. Marzouka, who owns packaging and spaghetti factories in Port-au-Prince. One of his warehouses is full of food and he said he fully expected it to be looted as the situation in Haiti grew more dire in the days ahead.
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Article courtesy of: NY Times
