Monday, November 10, 2008

Haiti School Collapses...OCHA Situation Report No. 4

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 09 Nov 2008

Haiti: School Collapses in Port au Prince OCHA Situation Report No. 4

Search and rescue operations are on-going conducted by Haitian, French and American rescue teams that are working by shift through the debris of the La Promesse school that collapsed last Friday morning in Nerette, Petion ville commune, Port-au-Prince.

Teams identified the location of four dead bodies trapped beneath the concrete; however the precarious safety conditions of the collapsed building only allowed removing one corpse.
At this time chances to find survivors are very little. Nevertheless search and rescue teams are not giving up and they agreed that the demolition phase of the building starts in 2 hours - Haitian and the French teams will try to turn around the last step of concrete (about 800 Kg) - then allowing the three teams to continue search operations. Operations are expected to pursue until Tuesday.

Official information provided by the Haitian Civil Protection Unit shows that: 89 victims are reported dead; 150 wounded persons have been transferred to hospitals.

It is still unknown how many children attended school last Friday morning. The La Promesse school had capacity for 700 students in two shits. It is estimated that 250-260 children were in school when it crumbled, leaving students, teachers and some street vendors under the concrete.

The Government is preparing a plan to support the families of the victims.