Haiti: the toughest, most harrowing assignment ever
I am writing this sitting cross-legged on a sleeping mat at the bottom of the runway in Port-au-Prince.
That there is a runway is itself remarkable in that, from the first steps beyond the airfield, the earthquake destruction is everywhere.
And because there is a runway, nine days on, there is a credible relief effort here in Haiti.
This has been the toughest and most harrowing assignment I have ever known. Even for those who did not live there, the living conditions are desperate.
Food from prepared rations made many years ago and stored in a garage. Bottled water – but you worry when it will run out.
Petrol is more valuable by far than dollars, and you lose track of time. Days, and a life beyond the death and carnage that surrounds you. Who knew that concrete was such a mass murderer?
My only real experience of an earthquake disaster was the Pakistan earthquake of 2005. Sure, I’ve been in quakes in Mexico and El Salvador, felt the room in my American chain hotel shudder and bump.
But there was an aftershock here, at this time yesterday. The airfield rumbled and it felt as if it was being subjected to a seismic wave beneath. We swayed but we did not fall.
But in those 30 or 40 seconds your mind does curious things and wonders if a great fissure will open up and swallow you.
In Pakistan there was infrastructure. The capital was secure. There was an army, and aid agencies were not themselves decapitated as they have been here.
I have begun to see signs of humanity trying to pull itself together here in Haiti – of people on the pavements, cooking and presumably selling dishes of one sort or another. I’ve begun to see the bilious colour of fruit in the dusty grey: oranges, bananas.
Haitians are somehow struggling to the surface. Yet the tens and tens of thousands who are out in the open – no, they are hundreds of thousands with all they have left – present such a massive challenge. How will they ever be housed?
I have seen a solitary man with a hammer and a chisel, setting to work on a 100ft-long wall. Six foot high, it had collapsed on his garage business, crushing 10 cars. Each brick takes him many minutes to break and move.
The wall could take two months to clear this way, But then, what else has he got left to do?
The challenges are beyond any imagination. Seasoned aid and rescue people tell me they have never ever encountered anything like it. The Red Cross says it is their biggest humanitarian deployment ever.
Seen from my cross-legged perspective from the bottom of the runway, the world has responded with extraordinary generosity. Obama has sent a sizable segment of his war machine to deliver hope.
Corporations, charities, individuals, are doing all they can. But there is something in this for us all. We are a world, interdependent, luck and unlucky. Haiti is so desperately unlucky.
DFID is sending a huge ship of supplies. It won’t get here for a month. When it comes, it will be most needed. That’s when we shall have begun to forget, and when whose who do not die between now and then – and there will be many who will – will need us most.
Haiti must join the so many other causes etched upon our hearts: our children, the people we love, our own individual histories and understandings.
Boy, this has been something it will take me long to shake out of my system. It is in my pores. I smell of it. I cannot share my sleeping space with my boots or my socks. There is not enough water to wash anything.
Today I will wear the shirt I wore last Sunday. It is the least ripe of what I have left. And that’s me – free to leave. What of them?
Related posts:
- Haiti: no doctor, no medicine, no hope
- The UN's top man in Haiti: his last poignant words
- Haiti's long, long haul out of the bottleneck
- One year on from an American ecstasy
There are 28 comments on this post
All I will say to your blog Jon, is that your reports from this naturally devastated area of the world, are very highly comendable and important.
People insult journalists, who find themselves in areas of mass destruction but I would like to see them, smelling what you can smell on yourself.
I will agree though, that there could be less “TV” in Haiti, using a few of the best, to do the commenting.
adzmundo CND
One feels that the ones who have died and not helpless and injured ,facing a life of struggles and pain: the ones who have perished are the lucky ones.
The unhurt healthy ones will make it or like yourself be free to leave.
You and your team have a good sleep, have many long showers and thank God it is not you.
My Father always used to say it’s about me , but it is always someone else, until he died ,then it was about him.
I have been wondering, Jon, what conditions have been like for correspondents; I very much appreciate the efforts of you and your colleagues at this awful time. The overwhelming sense is of how on earth even to begin to do anything meaningful. Thanks for conveying the information to us – and safe home. Kind regards.
Haiti Its outrageous that so many still havent received any food, water med aidWhat has happended to the oShelterboxes and tonnas of aid flown in from Helston/Newquay airport Cornwall?.
Pensioner
Jon, you bring us to tears.
You are absolutely right when you say ‘We are a world, interdependent, luck and unlucky. Haiti is so desperately unlucky’.
You probably don’t recognise that the work you are doing, alongside ever single individual person out there, is VERY VERY appreciated, both here, there and around the world. You lot are our ‘Ambassadors Of Salvation’. You are our eyes and ears and hope and tears. Be proud of your input and, know that we are very proud of you lot.
Thanks, Jon. The reporting of you and your colleagues has again been exemplary. Yet I feel those of us sitting horrified at home can only grasp a tiny fragment of the horror of it.
I can’t help thinking of the probably hundreds of people who survived the initial quake but were trapped alive and died alone because rescuers could not reach them. That must be one of the saddest and most agonising ways to die.
It’s easy to say we won’t forget but we will probably require news services like yours to go back time and time again to update us and keep us concentrated on what is going to take yaers to resolve
Jon i know i often have a go at you , but that is one of the most heartfelt articles of yours i have read.I do think you have given us a great account of the harrowing situation down there in Haiti , and we must hope they come out stronger of a terrible situation and the world give them all the help they need in the future.
The Haiti devastation brings home to all of us the fragility of life. Many of us take too much for granted – clean water an abundance of food, good housing etc. Sadly it takes a catastrophe of such magnitude for us to realise that we are all in this together and the global response has been magnificent. Th
The Haiti devastation brings home to all of us the fragility of life. Many of us take too much for granted – clean water an abundance of food, good housing etc. Sadly it takes a catastrophe of such magnitude for us to realise that we are all in this together and the global response has been magnificent. The USA are playing a major role in these operations but lets not forget that countries worldwide have also played their part. Your reporting of the devastating effects this earthquake has had on this poor nation has been second to none. You have not simply hung about reporting in relative safety but have given us reports of deaths and survivals at much risk to yourself and crew. What pleased me most was the fact that Haiti was not a one day headline but was given its due priority in daily news bulletins since the disaster. You brought an insight into how this has affected a cross section of the country. You are a credit to your profession and I’ll continue to watch Channel 4 news.Keep well and safe journey home
Well said!
I absolutely agree with you.
Jon Snows reports on the Haiti earthquake have reinforced my belief that Channel 4 News provides the most effective bulletins. Other broadcasters provide a transitory report but yours gets to the nitty gritty and thats why it has a powerful impact. Thank You
Two documentaries that have shaken me like no other since
LOOSE CHANGE till now are:
THE OBAMA DECEPTION and
THE ZEITGEIST
ALL are viewable on YOUTUBE
Spread the word!!!
My Apologies go out to those who feel i’m using this comment box instead of writing about Haiti.
May Haitians very slowly rebuild their country for their own interest and not in the interest of BANKS, who control amongst other devastating industries, the arms and pharmaceutical companies.
adzmundo CND
How do journalists feed themselves when in disaster locations such as Haiti? Where do you get your supplies from?
If you would have been listening Julian you would have heard Jon snow tell us that the crewe brought their own supplies.
Thankyou Mr Snow, may you enjoy a warm shower and welcome home, and know that your reports have made a difference to the relief effort. We are humbled by the devastation and in awe of your capacity to report what must be in many respects unreportable. Thankyou to you and your team, you provide us with the most insightful and rigorous news reporting. ‘ Channel 4 news, probably the best news reporting in the world, Jon Snow the best reporter in the world …Definitely!’
I am glued to Channel 4′s coverage of Haiti and most importantly John Snow’s report. It is the best source of information on the ground and I am so grateful for Snow’s commitment to the story. Please, Channel 4 Executives, keep up your commitment to the story as I’ve noticed it received little air time tonight on the 7pm news. Keep us informed. Katie West Sussex
Thank you Jon for the wonderful reporting you have done in Haiti. It only confirms my suspicions that you are the best reporter this country has and you, more than any other journalist I have seen reporting from Haiti, have brought home to us some of the harrowing devastation caused. I say only some because without us being there we will never fully be able to comprehend what these people are going through and the horrors you have seen. I have been particularly impressed by your constant pushing for answers and solutions regarding the bottle necks and areas outside port-au-prince that had gone unnoticed. I think you are probably the only journalist that has some clout in getting things done which is just as much a compliment to your ethics as a journalist as it is to your trusted reputation to deliver the truth as it is.
I do however agree with a few things that have been mentioned on the blog in regards to the amount of journalists out in Haiti. I think that the amount of journalists should have been limited to only the best and most reputed. Journalists take up valuable resources and supplies and there is no need for 4 or 5 journalists from one news programme to be there.
Haiti was already at crisis point before this disaster, over-populated, under-resourced, and with some of the poorest, most deprived people in the modern world. Haiti is a country devout in its Catholicism, and this devotion to Rome has surely led to countless-thousands of unnecessary pregnancies and malnourished infants, born into a deeply challenging world, even before this quake. Why is it not the Vatican coming first to the aid of this nation who have given up so much to their faith in a loving church.. why does it have to fall to pop stars, Obama, and the wider population to sort out this mess? Safe sex education and birth control surely would be a far more effective intervention program to avoid such a disaster being repeated. Can’t help but watch footage tonight interspliced between Taylor Swift, Stevie Wonder and Reese Witherspoon in LA luxury playing for someone’s supper and get frustrated at the suffering of so many who in more open free thinking society may have avoided so many child burials.
The Vatican in IMHO are a crowd of extreme right wing nutters – their so called ” morality”- sic – usually is on one topic – if Haiti had been scene of some well publicesed sex orgies – the Vatican would shout loud enough – thankfully they are hopefully ?? [ ie Vatican ] on the decline .
It is a terrible situation, without doubt. But I don’t buy into the idea of hordes of correspondents descending on an already overstretched community. And why does Jon always have to be there, when there is a perfectly competent reporter who provided last night’s Haiti coverage while Snow headed back home in time for the weekend?
Competent is not the same as excellent!!!
Why is the “Hope in Haiti Now” appeal not being shown on domestic TV in the UK to raise funds and awareness of this continuing crisis?
And who would pick the ”Best ”- almost ceratinly the USA – who control it ——- do u really want the likes of Fox etc to be your source of ” information”?.
I watched the Obama Decption – it more or less fits exactly what is happening and waht he is doing – and is relevat to Hiati too- the rally dangerous thing is that it had only 5,000 views – but thankfulyy / hopefully people are copping on to this man – and more so his bosses – who will tax us for every penny – and waht they want is for us to be as powerless as the peoplle of Haiti were / are . Look at the news and read newspapers if u will – but while we still have the interent / you tube etc – use them – and make up your own mind.
I’ve seen John Snow, speaking then in effortless French, at a gig of musicians from Mali (who swapped their semi-automatic rifles for guitars!). He is inspirational – amongst the very best of British reporting. He has inspired me -and – whatever people may think of the rights and wrongs of it, I’m going over with as much as I can carry next month. One world.
Mr Flavin, I think your comments both on the Vatican and Documentaries like The Obama Deception, have “hit the nail right on its head”.
For the those who gave us thumbs down on “SPREADING THE WORD”…
I respect your decisions but please take your own time to think again, as it MUST never be too late.
adzmundo CND
Sorry – I honestly dont undersatnd the last lines in your post- perhaps u could elucidate a bit more . Thanks .
I totally understand and therefore respect, those who don’t believe or can fathom, that we are heading for a World Central Bank.
adzmundo CND