In Quake-Ravaged Haiti, Rescuers Scramble To Save People Trapped In Rubble

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Haitians in Les Cayes assess the damage on Sunday after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.

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Patients are tended to outside Les Cayes General Hospital after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Sunday in Les Cayes.

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Richard Pierrin/Getty Images

Patients are tended to outside Les Cayes General Hospital after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Sunday in Les Cayes.

Richard Pierrin/Getty Images

Wagner Tanis, who lives on Île-à-Vache, situated in the middle of a southern bay near Les Cayes, says there was a lot of damage on the island, but he is unaware of any deaths there.

Reached by NPR in Les Cayes, Tanis says he was in the stricken city because it’s the closest place for the people of Île-à-Vache «to get money to buy food.

«Many houses in Île-à-Vache are destroyed, he says. «I know many people, [whose] houses [are] damaged.

In the city of Jeremie, about 60 miles north of Les Cayes and located on the same southern peninsula, roads were cut off by the quake, cleared and then made impassable again by aftershock-triggered mudslides.

«We are using boats. We are using the helicopters and the airplanes as much as possible, Chandler tells NPR.

And, for the moment, the road is open, he says.

The quake comes as Haiti is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, rising gang violence, and political instability in the wake of the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

But Chandler says the gangs appear to have backed off since the quake, possibly for humanitarian reasons. As a result, over the weekend he was able to get a single convoy of trucks through a section of road that’s notorious for hijackings.

NPR’s Jason Beaubien contributed to this story from Port-au-Prince.