Haitians here await word from loved ones following quake

Thema Almonor barely slept Tuesday night.

"It's awful," said the Collegedale resident, who moved to the United States in 1998 but still has many close relatives in earthquake-shattered Haiti.

"You call and there's no answer so you don't know if people are OK or not," she said.

Local Haitians have been glued to their televisions since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, devastating the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Information on how many people were killed or affected by the earthquake is still not available, but more than 2 million people live in Port-au-Prince. The Associated Press has reported that about 100,000 could be dead.

Schools, hospitals and even the presidential National Palace collapsed during the earthquake and its aftershocks, various news outlets reported. The United Nations reported that basic services, including water and electricity, are near the brink of collapse.

The news of those who have perished is coming slowly.

Ms. Almonor learned that some of her cousins survived, while another and his family had died.

"But we have to move on. We have to focus on what we can do to help," she said.

Bherma Touffainz, who left Haiti when she was 12, found out through a text message that one of her friends had died.

"I don't know what I'm going to hear next," the 22-year-old nurse said.

She was planning to go to Haiti in March, but now is willing to go with any organization, especially in the medical field.

Organizations with ties to Haiti were quick to respond to the disaster and ask for donations and volunteers to help with the relief efforts.

Charles Sternbergh, chairman of the board of trustees of the local Children's Nutrition Program in Haiti, said the organization has several staff people in the country, including the executive director, but they were not hurt.

The organization mainly works in Leogane, a little town about 12 miles from the capital, he said, but he has not been able to reach anyone by e-mail or phone.

"We are just terribly concerned about what happened," said Dr. Sternbergh, who has worked in Haiti for more than 10 years. Most people build their own homes and the construction standards are very low, he said.

"I hope this is going to put Americans in the picture that here is a neighbor that is very close to our country which has been in dire straits for basically 200 years and now it has this incredible crisis layered on top of that," he said.

Score International, a local ministry that sends people on short-term humanitarian and religious missions, is using its base in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to plan relief efforts. The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

"What we are asking people for rapid response is money," said Ron Bishop, founder and president of Score International. "If we have money, then our team in the Dominican Republic can purchase the necessary food, medicine, water and truck it over to Haiti.

"Secondly, we need people who are willing to volunteer to go and do humanitarian relief in the city," he said. "We can use anybody who can go and help us distribute the aid and are also looking for medical personnel who are willing to go."

Ms. Almonor, who visited Haiti in October after almost 10 years away, asid the tiny nation seems trapped in a "vicious cycle."

"It's like one thing after the other. Haiti is already struggling and for something like this to happen, it's just makes it worse," she said.