1/12/10 Earthquake in Haiti Map - Courtesy of BBC News (http://news.BBC.co.uk)
As you may already know, Haiti has suffered a completely devastating earthquake that rated a whopping 7.3 on the Rictor Scale. The earthquake was centered only a few miles from Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake hit yesterday (Tuesday January 12, 2010) and was followed by multiple aftershocks. The end result of the earthquake is the entire city and surrounding area is completely destroyed.
An estimated 100,000 people are dead already. Another 3 million people hae been injured. The survivors and wounded are left to attempt to survive in a completely crumbled city with little medical facilities and even less fresh food or water. The scope of this natural disaster is unprecedented for this century. In fact, you would have to go back some two centuries to find another earthquake of this magnitude occurring in Haiti.
Haiti is a highly impoverished country to begin with. They have suffered mass outbreak of HIV, a civil war that ravaged the country, and a series of hurricanes– all in the last five years. This event, however, eclipses those previous tragedies and has only escalated the suffering amongst the Haitian people. The average person in Haiti lives on $2 a day (or around $60 a month). Compare that to where I live in Warwick, NY where the average person lives on $62,000 a year (or roughly $5,167 a month) and you can see how little the people of Haiti have to start out with. Lump something of this size on their backs and there is no way Haiti can recover on its own.
Thus, digitalflood.com will be running for the next month a banner on the site pointing you to the American Red Cross donation web portal where you can select the “International Response Fund” and directly send money to Haitian relief efforts. We ask that you please send whatever you can whether it be a dollar or a hundred dollars. Every cent literally counts and time is of the absolute essence. We thank you for both your generosity and support in advance. The people of Haiti will appreciate any effort you can make to assist them.
