Haïti: tremblement de terre. Rapport de Situation nº 1 - 22 aout 2021 / Haiti: earthquake. Situation Report n ° 1 - August 22, 2021

Après qu'un puissant séisme de magnitude 7,2 et une dépression tropicale aient frappé Haïti les 14 et 17 août derniers, ne faisant qu'aggraver la misère et le dénuement causés par une intensification des déplacements liés aux gangs, une insécurité alimentaire chronique et des chocs climatiques récurrents, les besoins humanitaires augmentent rapidement, dépassant la vitesse à laquelle les autorités nationales et les partenaires humanitaires peuvent atteindre les populations touchées. Le passage de la dépression tropicale Grace n'a fait qu'aggraver les conditions sur le terrain après le tremblement de terre, en déversant des pluies extrêmement fortes dans les mêmes régions du sud du pays qui ont subi l'impact du tremblement de terre quelques jours plus tôt et en retardant le déploiement rapide des évaluations sectorielles et l'acheminement de l'aide humanitaire vitale. Alors que le département du Sud-Est a été largement épargné par les conséquences du séisme dévastateur, les pluies diluviennes de Grace ont déclenché des inondations dans le département qui ont touché des centaines de foyers, générant des besoins concurrents issus de crises qui se superposent. Au 21 août, le bilan s'élevait à 2 207 morts, 12 268 blessés et 344 disparus. Ces chiffres augmentent d'heure en heure, car les équipes de recherche et de sauvetage ont de plus en plus de mal à trouver des survivants. Alors que le nombre de personnes gravement blessées ne cesse d'augmenter, la capacité de réaction du système de santé, déjà limitée, est de plus en plus mise à l'épreuve. Beaucoup de celles et ceux qui ont eu la chance de s'en sortir vivants se retrouvent maintenant sans abri, sans accès à l'eau potable et à l'assainissement, et plus exposés aux violences et aux abus, y compris aux violences basées sur le genre (VBG), car l'environnement de protection reste précaire. Selon la Direction générale de la protection civile (DGPC), 650 000 personnes ont besoin d'une aide humanitaire d'urgence dans les trois départements les plus touchés (Sud, Grand'Anse et Nippes). L'agriculture et les moyens de subsistance qui y sont liés ont été durement frappés dans les zones sinistrées, ce qui risque d'aggraver la sécurité alimentaire dans un pays où 4,4 millions de personnes, soit près de 40 % de la population, souffraient déjà d'insécurité alimentaire aiguë. Certaines des zones les plus touchées, comme le département des Nippes, ont déjà été confrontées aux conséquences négatives des sécheresses cycliques et de l'érosion des sols ces dernières années, ce qui a probablement poussé de nombreuses personnes à recourir à des mécanismes d'adaptation négatifs, car elles n'ont pas la capacité de faire face à la dernière crise.

Haiti: earthquake situation. Report nº 2 - 26 August 2021

Nearly two weeks after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake rocked south-western Haiti, humanitarian assistance has begun reaching some of the hardest-to-reach areas, where the most vulnerable are still unable to meet their urgent need for food, basic sanitation and hygiene and life-saving health services. In some remote rural areas, response personnel and relief supplies have yet to reach those most in need. The compounded impacts of the earthquake and Tropical Depression Grace have greatly exacerbated pre-existing needs. The UN System in Haiti estimates 650,000 people are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, a concerning figure considering that 634,000 people across the three most affected departments ­ Grand'Anse, Nippes and Sud ­ already needed multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance before the quake. As of the latest updates issued on 25 August, the Haitian Civil Protection General Directorate (DGPC) reported 2,207 deaths,12,268 injured and 320 missing. By 22 August, search-and-rescue crews had extracted 24 missing people from the rubble, including 4 children, who were airlifted to Camp-Perrin to receive emergency medical assistance. In the Sud Department, aftershocks continue almost two weeks after the initial quake on 14 August, creating widespread panic among the affected population. Some people whose homes are still standing in affected areas are choosing to sleep in the streets in fear that the structures may collapse at any moment.

Flash appeal Haiti - 2021

Le 14 août à 8h30, heure locale, un séisme de magnitude 7,2 a frappé la côte sud-ouest d'Haïti, causant des dommages à grande échelle dans toute la péninsule sud du pays. Le puissant séisme de 10 km de profondeur s'est produit à 13 km au sud-est de PetitTrou- de-Nippes, dans le département des Nippes, une région déjà dévastée par l'ouragan Matthew en 2016. Deux jours seulement après le séisme, la dépression tropicale Grace a déversé des pluies extrêmement fortes dans le sud d'Haïti, provoquant des inondations dans les mêmes zones touchées par le séisme.

Flash appeal summary: Haiti earthquake

Humanitarian needs are rapidly growing in the aftermath of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck south-west Haiti on 14 August 2021, badly affecting the departments of Grand'Anse, Nippes and Sud. The earthquake's devastating impact, while considered less catastrophic than the 2010 earthquake that left more than 220,000 people dead and 1.5 million injured, was later compounded with heavy rains from tropical depression Grace on 17 August. Overall, official reports indicate more than 2,200 deaths and more than 12,000 people injured. The consecutive impacts damaged or destroyed more than 130,000 homes, rendering thousands homeless and in urgent need of assistance.

Flash appeal Haiti: earthquake - August 2021

On 14 August at 8:30 am local time, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the south-western coast of Haiti causing large-scale damage across the country's southern peninsula. The powerful 10 km deep earthquake occurred 13km southeast of Petit-Troude-Nippes, in the department of Nippes, the same region devastated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Only two days after the quake, Tropical Depression Grace dumped extremely heavy rains in southern Haiti, causing flooding in the same quake-affected areas. Despite being much less catastrophic than the 2010 earthquake which left more than 220,000 people dead and 1.5 million injured, the impact of the 14 August earthquake has been devastating. According to the latest reports issued by the Haitian Civil Protection on 21 August, the death toll has now surpassed 2,200 with more than 12,200 people injured. Almost 53,000 homes have been destroyed and more than 77,000 have sustained damage. About 800,000 people have been affected and an estimated 650,000 people ­ 40 per cent of the 1.6 million people living in the affected departments ­ are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. The back-to-back disasters are exacerbating preexisting vulnerabilities. At the time of the disaster, Haiti is still reeling from the 7 July assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and still facing an escalation in gang violence since June that has affected 1.5 million people, with at least 19,000 displaced in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. The compounded effects of an ongoing political crisis, socio-economic challenges, food insecurity and gang violence continue to greatly worsen an already precarious humanitarian situation. Some 4.4 million people, or nearly 46 per cent of the population, face acute food insecurity, including 1.2 million who are in emergency levels (IPC 4) and 3.2 million people at crisis levels (IPC Phase 3). An estimated 217,000 children suffer from moderateto-severe acute malnutrition.

Global Earthquake Safety Initiative (GESI): pilot project

As the Global Earthquake Safety Initiative (GESI) Pilot Project was drawing to a close, the world witnessed two earthquake disasters, striking countries on opposite sides of the earth: India and El Salvador. At this writing, the final human and economic toll is not known, but it can be assumed that tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars were lost. For El Salvador, emerging from decades of civil war and with half its population below the poverty line, the losses were devastating­0.02% of its population and 10% of its GDP, equivalent to losses for the more populous, richer U.S. of 55,000 lives and $900 billion. And the toll cannot be measured in lives and dollars alone. The entire world shuddered at images of Indian children crushed while sitting at their school desks or while marching in a holiday parade. Learning of such disasters is especially distressing for people like the authors of this report, who are familiar with earthquake risk. As it is for everyone, it is painful for us to see the suffering of already impoverished people and innocent children. It is even worse because for us these disasters are no surprise and they teach us nothing new. Studies of earthquake disasters always reach the same conclusions: communities should enact and enforce modern building and land-use codes, strengthen and prepare medical care facilities, and train and equip emergency response agencies. These earthquake disasters are also depressing because for a fraction of the reconstruction costs, the losses could have been reduced or even avoided through mitigation and preparedness beforehand. Finally, these disasters disturb us because they absorb the world's attention, allowing little attention to be given to the hundreds of communities that are as vulnerable as those just struck. Thus, while we mourn the Indian and Salvadoran victims and sympathize with the survivors, our energies are directed to avoiding such disasters elsewhere in the future. We wish to alert threatened cities of their danger and help them reduce their future death and suffering. This is the mission of GeoHazards International (GHI) and the focus of the GESI Pilot Project.

RADIUS: risk isessment tools for dagnosis of urban areas against seismic disasters

Urban seismic risk is rapidly increasing, particularly in developing countries, where a number of mega-cities are growing.Almost half of the world population lives in cities, where all kinds of human activities are concentrated. Thus, cities are more and more vulnerable to disasters, particularly to earthquakes, which can strike any city suddenly without warning. Once an earthquake takes place in a large city,the damage can be tremendous both in human and economic terms. Even an intermediate earthquake can cause destructive damage to a city as in the cases of the 1995 earthquake in Kobe. Japan and the 1999 earthquake in Kocaeli,Turkey. There is a tendency to think that disaster prevention would cost much more than relief activities. However, the reality is the reverse. Our society has been spending a lot of resources for response activities after disasters; these resources could have been drastically reduced if some had been spent for disaster prevention.There is also a tendency to look at disasters mainly from a humanitarian angle, bringing us into the position of giving priority to the response to disasters. However, relief activities can never save human lives that have already been lost. Response activities can never help immediately resume functions of an urban infrastructure that have already been destroyed. The bottom line is that buildings should not kill people by collapsing and infrastructure should not halt social and economic activities of the city for a long time. It is essential particularly for seismic risk reduction to concentrate our efforts on prevention and preparedness.The secretariat of the lnternational Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR 1990-2000), United Nations, Geneva, therefore, launched the RADIUS (Risk AssessmentTools for Diagnosis of Urban Areas against Seismic Disasters) initiative in 1996, with financial assistance from the Government of Japan. It aimed to promote worldwide activities for reduction of seismic disasters in urban areas, particularly in developing countries.

Perspectivas de ONGs sobre acesso a medicamentos para HIV em 13 países latino-americanos e do Caribe / Perpectives of NGOs on HIV medication acess in 13 Latin-American and Caribean countries

Discute os dados obtidos em 13 países da América Latina e do Caribe. Mostra o alcance das atividades de ONGs na regiäo e enfoca seu papel com relaçäo a questöes de reivindicaçäo do tratamento e provimento de informaçäo. Enfatiza as capacidades das ONGs, como flexibilidade e habilidade para adaptarem-se a situaçöes em constantes mudanças. Ressalta que as atividades relacionadas a medicamentos podem somente complementar as que säo executadas pelos governos