One Year After Haiti's Quake: Rubble Clogs Capital, Cholera Babies

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti) --  One year after a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, its capital, Port-au-Prince, is hard at work trying to rebuild itself.

Projects create dust on every street corner, but many are privately funded and done piecemeal, often using the same rusted rebar that failed Haitians the first time.

It is estimated about 700 million-cubic-feet of rubble have yet to be cleared, enough to fill six Superdomes.  Only 10 percent of the rubble has been removed.  It is Haiti's biggest challenge, Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerieve told ABC News Wednesday.

The prime minister said the bulk of the rubble cleared -- enough to open most of the city's shattered  streets -- was paid for by the government, although most of the removal ABC News has witnessed in four trips over the past year resulted from private initiatives -- most often Haitians using shovels, picks and buckets.

Aside from rubble, the country is still facing many other challenges.

Bellerieve told ABC News the government has revised its previous estimate of the death toll from 230,000 to 316,000, meaning about three percent of Haiti's entire population died.

Haiti has yet to elect a new president, and it's voters continue to wait for the results of the disputed Nov. 29 elections.  The runoff for the three putative front runners -- the wife of a former president, with scant political experience, a former hip hop star, and a government anointed successor with a checkered past -- has been postponed to March, all under the threat of violence.

Following the quake, Haiti was hit by Hurricane Tomas, rekindling a cholera outbreak that claimed the lives of over 3,600 people.  Pregnant women and their newborns are still fighting and dying from the infection, and only one full service maternity hospital, run by the emergency relief group Doctors Without Borders, exists in the country.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Final Death Toll for Haiti Quake More than 300 Thousand

Photo Courtesy - Getty Images(PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti) – Haiti’s prime minister has told ABC News that the final death toll in last year’s earthquake in the country is higher than originally estimated.

According to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, the final death toll is 316,000, up from approximately 230,000.

The figure represents three percent of Haiti’s population and is equivalent to the entire city of New Orleans being wiped out in less than 60 seconds. Per capita, about twice as many Haitians died in the quake as did Americans during WWII.

Wednesday will mark the one-year anniversary of the disaster.
 
Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio