Local church helps quake victims

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A powerful earthquake struck Haiti's capital on Tuesday with withering force, toppling everything from simple shacks to the ornate National Palace and the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers. The dead and injured lay in the streets even as strong aftershocks rippled through the impoverished Caribbean country.

A local team from Gateway Freewill Baptist Church touched down in Haiti just minutes before the earthquake struck. The mission team, headed to the church clinic, passed crumbled buildings and saw how many people suffered serious injuries and worse. By the time they got to the clinic, Pastor Karl Sexton said it was full.

"For what we're there for, for our mission, it's divine timing really," said Sexton.

Gateway Freewill Baptist Church has a medical mission team in Haiti, scheduled to return on January 19.

The mission's objective has changed from evangelism, training and medical assistance to relief for the earthquake victims.

At this point, the American Red Cross does anticipate sending any local volunteers to the affected area. Local Red Cross officials are asking the Hampton Roads community to make financial donations only, they are not accepting food, clothing or any other types of donation at this time. If you're interested in helping, visit the Red Cross Website. Donations can be sent to the American Red Cross at P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or be made by phone by calling 1-800-REDCROSS.

You can also call the toll-free number to call for information about family members in Haiti is 1-888-407-4747. The State Department advises that some callers may receive a recording because of heavy volume of calls.

Associated Press journalists based in Port-au-Prince said the damage from the quake -- the most powerful to hit Haiti in more than 200 years -- is staggering even in a country accustomed to tragedy and disaster.

Women covered in dust crawled from the rubble wailing as others wandered through the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares late into the night, singing hymns. Many gravely injured people still sat in the streets early Wednesday, pleading for doctors. With almost no emergency services to speak of, the survivors had few other options.

Thousands of buildings were damaged and destroyed throughout the city, and for hours after the quake the air was filled with a choking dust from the debris of fallen buildings.

The scope of the disaster remained unclear, and even a rough estimate of the number of casualties was impossible. But it was clear from a tour of the capital that tens of thousands of people had lost their homes and that many had perished. Many buildings in Haiti are flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.

"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," said Louis-Gerard Gilles, a doctor and former senator, as he helped survivors. "Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together."

An Associated Press videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed for help in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as many poor people.

At a collapsed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a car, trying to peer inside as several men pulled at a foot sticking out in an attempt to extricate the body. She said her family was inside.

U.N. peacekeepers, most of whom are from Brazil, were trying to rescue survivors from their collapsed five-story headquarters, but U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said late Tuesday that "as we speak no one has been rescued."

"We know there will be casualties but we cannot give figures for the time being," he said.

Many U.N. personnel were missing, he said, including mission chief Hedi Annabi, who was in the building when the quake struck. Some 9,000 peacekeepers have been in Haiti since a 2004 rebellion ousted the president.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said its embassy was destroyed and the ambassador hospitalized for undisclosed injuries.

The National Palace crumbled into itself, but Haiti's ambassador to Mexico Robert Manuel said President Rene Preval and his wife survived the earthquake. He had no details.

The 7.0-magnitude quake struck at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday, centered 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.

The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said earthquake expert Tom Jordan at the University of Southern California. The quake's size and proximity to populated Port-au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.

"It's going to be a real killer," he said. "Whenever something like this happens, you just hope for the best."

Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of the buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that U.S. Embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed.

"They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust.

Bahn said there were rocks strewn about and he saw a ravine where several homes had stood: "It's just full of collapsed walls and rubble and barbed wire."

In the community of Thomassin, just outside Port-au-Prince, Alain Denis said neighbors told him the only road to the capital had been cut and phones were all dead so it was hard to determine the extent of the damage.

"At this point, everything is a rumor," he said. "It's dark. It's nighttime."

The United States was sending disaster rescue teams and President Barack Obama said the U.S. stood ready to help Haiti. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said from Honolulu that the U.S. was offering full assistance -- civilian and military.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said his government planned to send a military aircraft carrying canned foods, medicine and drinking water and also would dispatch a team of 50 rescue workers.

Mexico, which suffered a devastating earthquake in 1985 that killed some 10,000 people, was sending a team including doctors, search and rescue dogs and infrastructure damage experts, said Salvador Beltran, the undersecretary of foreign relations for Latin America and the Caribbean.

If your family or friends are in Haiti please contact  WAVY News 10.

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Other ways to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti include:

InterAction, a coalition of U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations, has a list of agencies responding and how to donate to them.  Click here to acces the list.

To donate $10 to the American Red Cross, text Haiti to 90999. The amount will be added to your next phone bill. The organization is also accepting donations through its International Response Fund.  Click here.

To donate $5 to Wyclef Jean's Haitian Yele charity, text 501501. The money will be added to your next phone bill.

To find out how to help the International Rescue Committee, click here or call toll free, 1-877-REFUGEE.

To donate through Oxfam's emergency appeal, click here.