TESTIMONY ABOUT THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE IN 2010
My name is Elie Joseph and at the time of the earthquake I was living in the capital Port-au-Prince, which was the most effected area in the 2010 earthquake.
It happened at the end of the day of January 12, 2010 at five minutes to six o’clock. I was in the front yard of the Dental School, where I did my studies. We just had finished our work and we went in the front yard to relax a little bit. Then all of a sudden we felt there was something shaking, the earth moved strangely up and down, all around, moving all over. The shaking took about one minute, and then we saw dust coming up everywhere. And we saw people running and screaming with blood and dust mixed together on their bodies and faces. Then we realized something just happened. And we started to have aftershocks, not so heavy, but many of them. They actually lasted all night and during the next day. During every aftershock people were crying and calling “Jesus” every Haitian; the name of Jesus was on their lips all day and night.
I myself was in front yard of the Dental building, which was very well built. But all the electricity was gone, no phone contact, no internet, we were fighting to find water to drink. I didn’t go back home, because the area of my home was by the sea, and we were afraid, that we could have a tsunami. Some of us decided to go further than where we lived and we ended up around the US embassy, where a friend of mine lived. It is on a little mountain, far away from the sea, and we walked to get there for 4 hours. On our way we saw many buildings had totally collapsed and dead bodies were laying everywhere in the streets. The Medical School was nearby our school, and it had also totally collapsed, but they had no students that day, because they had a strike or something. The Nursing School nearby collapsed also and all the students were burried under the rubbish.
When we reached my friend’s dwelling, we finally got phone connection and we were able to call our families and found out, that by God’s grace everybody was o.k. I was already a believer at that time.
The next morning we decided to walk back home, and it took us five, may be six hours to return to our families. We didn’t have a tsunami at all. On our way back home – it was now day time – we realized the terrible destruction, and we were passing by people who were wrapping up dead bodies everywhere, and then put them on the side of the road.
Those who had lost someone now started to look for their missing relatives and friends and sometimes the search could last more than a month. Many didn’t find their relatives until today, wives were gone, many children. I have a friend who lost his sister when the university collapsed, others never found their wives. Some people were on the phone with their loved ones, who were trapped under collapsed buildings and they never got out.
Two Message believers died in the earthquake, one boy in school and a sister, who lived on the ground floor, when the whole building collapsed on her. Miraculously her two children were saved.
I can never forget this horrible experience.
The Convention Centre, where we had our first three meetings, suffered some damage, as shown on these photos:
Hurricane 2016
Last year in the fall we had the hurricane Matthew, but it was more in the south of the island, the area is called Jeremie. Before the hurricane struck it was the place with the most produce, where most of our provisions came from. Lots of vegetation was destroyed, while in Port-au-Prince we had just light winds.
We followed the eye of the hurricane on the website and we saw it coming very close to the town, where I was working, and then all of a sudden it turned.
Most of the palm trees were on the ground. The roof tiles from most of the houses were gone. After the hurricane was over, we had heavy rains for about an entire week, which left many people including Message believers in terrible distress; there was flooding everywhere.
Many poor people lived in little make-shift houses on the seaside there, and the tsunami, which was caused by the hurricane, took all those little homes down, leaving the already poorest of the poor without shelter, and the vegetable basket of the island was destroyed.
We also had a Cholera outbreak, which caused thousands of people to die. Haiti had one disaster after the other, but by God’s grace most of the believers have been spared.
Editor’s note: www.accuracy.org/release/haiti-man-made-disasters