PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -
The air was choked with
memory Wednesday in this
city where everyone lost a
brother, a child, a cousin or a
friend one year ago in the
earthquake. Haitians
marched down empty,
rubble-lined streets singing
hymns and climbed broken
buildings to hang wreaths of
flowers.
The landscape is much as the
quake left it, thanks to a
reconstruction effort that has
yet to begin addressing the
intense need. But the voices
were filled with hope for
having survived a year that
seemed to get worse at every
turn.
"We've had an earthquake,
hurricane, cholera, but we
are still here, and we are still
together," said Charlemagne
Sintia, 19, who stood at the
Silvio Cator soccer stadium in
a school uniform.
The nation held a minute of
silence at 4:53 p.m., the
moment when the
earthquake ripped the
ground open exactly one
year earlier. The government
raised its death toll estimate
Wednesday to more than
316,000, but it did not explain
how it arrived at that
number.
Thousands gathered around
the city to be with loved ones
and pray. They flocked to the
ruins of the once-towering
national cathedral, to a
soccer stadium that served as
an open-air morgue and
later housed a tent camp, to
parks, hillsides and the
neighborhood centers.
Businesses were closed.
Instead of traffic, streets
were filled with people
dressed in white, the color of
prayer and mourning. They
waved their hands, cheered
and called out to God as they
wound down roads beset by
ruins. Astride the unrepaired
buildings are camps where
an estimated 1 million
people still live, unable to
afford new homes.
"God blessed me by taking
only one of my cousins that
day. Our house collapsed but
we have health and life," said
Terez Benitot, a 56-year-old
woman whose husband, a
mason, can not find work
amid a reconstruction all are
waiting to begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment