Two years after the Haiti quake, the images of suffering are still fresh in the minds of Jamaica Defence Force soldiers who were part of the relief team in Port-au-Prince.
Lieutenant Johnathan Wemyss-Gorman was part of the rescue team that was dispatched from Jamaica to Port-au-Prince.
Speaking in the documentary ‘Quake: Haiti in Jamaica’, Weymss-Gorman recalls like yesterday, hearing the terrifying screams of a 13-year-old girl when she was told by a foreign doctor that the extent of the injuries she sustained to a leg meant that it would have to be amputated.
However, Weymss-Gorman said he intervened and sought help from a Jamaican orthopaedic surgeon who was part of the rescue mission and he managed to save the child’s leg.
For Captain Dr Gail Ranglin one of her hardest tasks was to help in identifying the body of an official from a CARICOM country who had gone to Haiti for a conference.
The documentary ‘Quake: Haiti in Jamaica’ will be posted on The Gleaner’s Website today at noon.
The World Bank reports that Haiti has been making progress in several critical areas two years after the country was struck by a massive earthquake.
According to the Washington-based financial institution progress has been made in the areas of human development and relief for families who lost their homes and income.
It says programmes addressing education, housing, disaster prevention and job creation in the private sector are also top on Haiti’s reconstruction agenda.
Meanwhile, about one million displaced Haitians have left temporary camps in the capital to return to their homes.
The World Bank says almost half of about 10 million cubic meters of rubble from the earthquake have been taken off the capital’s streets in the past two years.
Jamaica Gleaner
