Relief news update from Haiti - 23 Jan 2010  
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Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association relief news update from Haiti.
The US Geological Survey has found that aftershocks from the January 12 magnitude 7 earthquake are likely to continue for months or even years. Already traumatized, and often homeless and injured, the Haitian people are vulnerable to both hunger and sickness as hundreds of thousands are staying in some 200 open spaces throughout the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince.

With great sorrow and prayers, Supreme Master Ching Hai asked our Association’s relief team to go and help the most afflicted, and in particular, that Association members who are trained surgeons make time to help the desperately injured in Haiti.

The combined donation of US$154,000 from Supreme Master Ching Hai and our Association members is being used to acquire US$5.6 million in supplies, if bought in the United States, based on Haiti's cost of living.

Despite narrow roads that slowed traffic and special security circumstances, our Association’s relief team has been traveling to Port-au-Prince from their base on the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, working closely with the Civil Defense personnel of the Dominican Republic to deliver essential food, soy milk, and medical supplies to several hundreds of families.

In addition, our team’s medical doctors have been treating wounded patients in the sweltering heat, conducting procedures that would help prevent life- or limb-threatening conditions. With medical organizations concerned that the death toll could increase due to lack of hygiene and infected wounds, such care is especially
needed at this time.

Our Costa Rican Association relief team member shared more details in this report.
Haitian Correspondent (F): Today, our doctors and nurses continued assisting all the ill and wounded in the tent treatment area we set up, with the medicines our team brought from the USA.

We also went to visit two hospitals, where they gave us a list of missing medications. So we need buy medicines. Also, one of the hospitals asked us to help buy food, so tomorrow we will do that. We saw many children who came in a truck. At first we thought they were all healthy, but then when our doctors began to attend to them, we saw that they had many cuts on their feet, sometimes also on their hands, because with the earthquake there was so much destruction.

It caused the loss of everything, and they have nothing to cover their feet, so they suffer many cuts. Some of these children are unfortunately all alone; they have completely lost their entire family.

Often they speak Creole and do not truly understand Spanish or English and we unfortunately do not speak their language; but we try at least to give them our hands to hold while they are being treated, and to embrace whenever possible, because really, this is the universal language, the language of love and compassion.

VOICE: We are grateful to the Civil Defense team of the Dominican Republic, the Haitian government, and all others for their selfless help to the earthquake victims. Our thanks also to Supreme Master Ching Hai for her ongoing loving assistance, and our Association’s relief team for their dedicated work.

We pray for the safety of the affected and that such calamities are lessened through united efforts to stabilize our planetary home.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/haiti-aftershocks-continue/
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories
/DN-haitiquake_22int.ART.State.Edition1.4bbd54f.html