Humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake

The response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake included national governments, charitable and for-profit organizations from around the world which began coordinating humanitarian aid designed to help the Haitian people. Some countries arranged to send relief and rescue workers and humanitarian supplies directly to the earthquake damage zones, while others sought to organize national fund raising to provide monetary support for the nonprofit groups working directly in Haiti. OCHA coordinates and tracks this on a daily basis. The information is disseminated through the UN news and information portal, ReliefWeb. As of September 5, 2013, ReliefWeb have reported a total relief funding of $3.5 billion given (and a further $1 billion pledged but not given).

A number of countries sent large contingents of disaster relief, medical staff, technicians for reconstruction and security personnel. Notably, the governments of the United States, the UK, Israel, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Brazil, Italy and Cuba sent over 1,000 military and disaster relief personnel each, with the United States being by far the largest single contributor to the relief efforts. The international community also committed numerous major assets such as field hospitals, naval vessels, a hospital ship, aircraft carriers, transport aircraft and emergency facilities soon after the extent of the disaster became apparent. Dominican Republic was the first country to mobilize resources to aid and rescue Haiti immediately after the earthquake.

Progress in responding to the earthquake was hampered by a number of factors, including loss of life, a number of aftershocks, destroyed infrastructures, collapsed buildings blocking streets, the lack of electricity for gasoline station pumps, loss of the capital's seaport, and loss of air traffic control facilities. The damage to the Haitian government ministries, all of which suffered varying degrees of destruction and personnel deaths, impeded coordination of the disaster response.

In April 2010, the Haitian government asked that food distribution in the Pétion-Ville camp cease in order to allow the normal economy to resume.

Appeals for international aid were immediately requested by Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States and his nephew, singer Wyclef Jean, The American Red Cross quickly announced that it had run out of supplies in Haiti and appealed for public donations.

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Wikipedia