Haiti earthquake: covering the tragedy

Click on "See more photos" below to see some of Melissa's photos from Haiti and to read a transcript of the interview with her. You can also listen to the interview with Meg Laughlin.

"Oh Lord help me, oh lord help me," screams Milanda Cheri, 5, as nurses administer pain medication for her crushed pelvis and broken leg at the Jimani Public Hospital. Cheri was playing outside of her house in Croix des Mission near Port-au-Prince, when the house fell on her, trapping her body and crushing her bones.

Hear Milanda Cheri

 

As the days wear on since last Tuesday's earthquake, Korean, Chilean and American search and rescue teams work more to recover the remains than rescue the living at the Hotel Montana in Petionville, Haiti. Mani, 4-year-old German shepherd waits for a member of the Korean search and rescue team to descend what was once the roof of the Hotel Montana. The crew heard tapping as late as 5 am Wednesday, and nothing but silence since the 6.0 magnitude tremor that rocked Port-au-Prince at 7:30 am Wednesday. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Korean, Chilean and American search and rescue teams work more to recover the remains than rescue the living at the Hotel Montana in Petionville, Haiti. Here, a member of the Korean search and rescue team looks through the rubble of the Hotel Montana. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Members of the Korean search and rescue team use heavy equipment to break through the cement roof and walls of what was once the Hotel Montana in Petionville, Haiti. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

One of the hotel rooms at the Hotel Montana in Petionville now sits devoid of its furniture, instead of being used as a home-away-from-home for foreign diplomats and dignitaries it's been turned into a makeshift morgue. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Buildings that were leaning and had walls and roofs hanging on by a thread Tuesday night, turned to rubble and dust Wednesday morning when a 6.0 magnitude tremor rocked an already fragile Port-au-Prince. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

The drive into Petionville, Haiti appears seemingly normal, the street bustling with activity. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

"Since I was a little child [nursing] was my only dream, but now I don't know, cripples are rejected in Haiti," said Joaz la Nancie, 27, who was in her nursing school in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit last Tuesday. Lying in bed in the Jimani Public Hospital, she added, "I have no children, my career was everything." [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Hear the sound of a child's cries inside the Jimani Public Hospital.

 

Calvary Chapel member George Falcone of Old Bridge, NJ, helps feed juice to Mistane Louis, 25, from the Santo district of Port-au-Prince, after she had her arm amputated in the understaffed and overworked Jimani Public Hospital. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

A woman prays as she's carried into the Jimani Public Hospital on a stretcher Tuesday afternoon. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Sandra Murat lies with her one-month-old niece Bethchima Murat on a bed in the Jimani Public Hospital. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

After passing out juice and bread, Calvary Chapel members Gene Espinosa and Patti Height stop and pray for a patient at the Jimani Public Hospital. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Kattely Celineis, 44, was working in a small market in downtown Port-au-Prince when the store fell on her during last Tuesday's earthquake. Celineis ended up at the Jimani Public Hospital, where doctors debated where to amputate both of her legs due to infection down to the bone. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

Mike Wnek of Auburndale stops to pray for an earthquake victim, 38, who just had her left leg amputated form the thigh down at the Jimani Public Hospital. "She stopped to ask me if she was still going to be beautiful," said Wnek. "It breaks my heart. And I really have a lot of questions for God."

Hear a song being sung inside the Jimani Public Hospital.

 

A woman cries as she waits in line for food and water being delivered by Mike Wnek of Auburndale, who pulled off the impossible Monday, delivering aid to those displaced by the earthquake in Petionville. Most of the U.N. aid has been concentrated on areas where people were injured, but people said no help has come for those estimated 1.5 million left homeless by the earthquake in Haiti.

A line waiting for aid turns chaotic when the pushing surge forward creates a crush of people trying to hold their ground.

Jeanne-Marie Bettina, 24, has her wounds treated by nurses at the makeshift hospital set up in a classroom at the Love A Child orphanage in Fond-Parisien, Haiti. She has no feelings in her legs, and the fear that she's paralyzed form the waist down after being trapped under the rubble of her house in Toujour (near Port-Au-Prince) for 13 hours while waiting for her husband to dig her out, after Tuesday's earthquake.

Luckner Sinse, 26, gets treated for his wounds at the Love A Child orphanage in Fond-Parisien, Haiti. While trying to escape from his home in the Recoup District of Port-Au-Prince as it crumbled around him, Sinse suffered a concussion, broken finger and a broken leg in Tuesday's earthquake.

Pierre St. Louis of Port-au-Prince is bandaged and bloodied after his house fell on him in last Tuesday's earthquake.

Walls were destroyed, homes toppled and a school and church partially damaged in Croix Du Bouquet, Haiti, in a rural part of the county about 30 miles southwest of Port-Au-Prince.

Bodies left to rot in the sun lie partially uncovered on the streets of Petionville, Haiti, as the city struggles to survive after last Tuesday's earthquake.

After nursing, Marie Leonide Jean, 40, of Delmas 60 holds her sleepy 9-month-old daughter Florence Jean in a park in Petionville, which was once the private yard for the Prime Minister of Haiti's office, and is now being used as a tent city for thousands displaced by last Tuesday's earthquake. The mother of six lost everything when her house crumbled down around her, including the knowledge of if four of her children are still alive. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

An aid truck is rushed with outstretched hands and the screams of desperation as crackers, bread, water and juice are distributed at a park in Petionville, which was once the private yard for the Prime Minister of Haiti's office, and is now being used as a tent city for thousands displaced by last Tuesday's earthquake. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

A park in Petionville, which was once the private yard for the Prime Minister of Haiti's office, is now being used as a tent city for thousands displaced by last Tuesday's earthquake. [MELISSA LYTTLE, Times]

 

We have an idea of what’s being seen in Haiti.  What experiences are you having that cannot be conveyed in photos?

The obvious experience that we're having is just the sound and the smells that we're encountering. Yesterday we were in the Port-au-Prince area of Delmas and Petionville and the smell of death is just so prevelant there. Even riding in the car you notice people walking and walking with their noses covered by their t-shirts and you look down and there's a dead body at their feet and then all of the sudden it just permeates the vehicle. When you're out and about the smell of death is just hanging really heavy in the air right now. Port-au-prince, I've been there and it's always had a very distinct smell to me, sort of a burning particle smell and that smell is gone right now, it's completely overwhelmed by the smell of death. The sounds expecially here in the town that we're in, we were just in a hospital that's being used over the main triage area for a lot of the earthquake victims and what hits you instantly is you walk in the door and it's just the screams. They're performing amputations without anesthia and then people are coming out of them without pain killers. Legs are being set without anything to number the pain at all. And just the screams and the crying and the overall hysteria is just overwhelming.

 

You have had some experience in photographing in areas of conflict. How does this affect you as a person and as a photographer?

I don't think you're ever prepared to see something like this no matter how many times you've gone in to different areas of conflict. The past areas that I've been in have all sort of been manmade, man on man fighting, but the casualties are nowhere near the numbers that we're seeing. The people that are effected that are here, I can't even begin to estimate numbers that are going to tally up in the end here.

 

One question about technology. Tell us the technology challenges down there and how you are dealing with it.

 

I'm lucky to find a place with power and a generator and when the generator runs out of gasoline you kind of have to resort to some other measures. The other day I was transmitting pictures from my satellite phone which was put into a power transformer hooked up to a car battery with some alligator clips. We're trying to get it out as best as we can. The hardest part technologically is just keeping things charged and finding power to be able to get your stories out.

 

Could you do what you're doing without a sat phone right now?

 

Absolutely not. The sat phone is just absolutely critical. It's a piece of equipment I'm most worried about now, I mean always having it with me and knowing that it's safe and secure.

 

There are no internet connections, you have no cell phone coverage. I'm asking about the basic infrastructure in Haiti right now and what's available for communication purposes.

 

Last time I was in Port-au-Prince there were some cyber cafes where I would go in and check my email for a dollar and hour and sit in the air conditioning. There's no power inside this city right now pretty much once you cross the border.

 

Do you see anything on the road as you travel between the Dominican Republic and Port-au-Prince that gives you any reason for optimism? Any moments of hope or humanity, goodness?

 

I wish I could say that I have. I love to be optimistic and idealistic and always looking for that ray of hope but right now the devastation is just overwhelming. It's felt everywhere, on every surface by every person. When we were driving through Delmas yesterday on our way home there was a nice little scene where there were some kids sort of kicking around a soccer ball in an alley. Just a small sign that life was going to be ok for these kids but they're few and far between certainly.