A City of Dead People

The entire city of Port au Prince suffered to one extent or another. The death toll is horrendous, the cost to recover from the damage is staggering, and the long-term effects of the earthquake on survivors may haunt them for the rest of their lives.

I've backed out even farther in the image below, but I wanted to be sure the names of the various neighborhoods in Port au Prince were still shown. I'll highlight the worst damage in these neighborhoods.



Most Americans have heard about Hotel Montana, where many Americans stayed when visiting Haiti. Hotel Montana is in the Petionville neighborhood, in the hills to the southeast of the city center. From the air, there doesn't appear to be much damage. The walls appear to be standing, the roof doesn't look damaged, and there isn't much debris around the building. Reports from people on the ground indicate the inner walls collapsed, and rubble is stacked dozens of feet high within the outer walls. This is one of the drawbacks to using imagery alone for damage assessment - the camera usually can't look inside the walls or through the roof.



This is the Berthe neighborhood, less than a mile from the Hotel Montana. At least half of the buildings have suffered extensive damage, and a large number of them were destroyed.



These six ridges, facing the southwest, suffered extensive damage. These are areas where many of Haiti's middle class owned homes, and where the damage has destroyed whole neighborhoods.



This image is typical of the areas found on each of the ridges.



Here is another photo, taken of one of the other ridges.



This is a neighborhood near Bois Patate. To the right in the image is another of the many tent encampments - people who have lost their homes, or are afraid to go inside.



This area, in the Saint Gerard neighborhood, is filled with buildings that have been totally destroyed.



This last image is of a village on the southern boundary of the city. The damage is very visible.



All of the neighborhoods in today's post are along the southern boundary of the city. Tomorrow (or later), I'll try to provide some shots of the eastern portions of the city.