News from the Field

Members of the Japanese JDR team at work at their emergency medical center at the very epicenter of the haiti earthquake

A Japanese emergency medical team is working around the clock at the very epicenter of the earthquake which rocked Haiti last week causing tens of thousands of deaths and leaving many more as hapless victims.

The 25-strong team from the Japan Disaster Relief (JDR) system is working in the rubble of the town of Leogane, several miles from the capital of Port au Prince, and which was at the very heart of the tremor.

The United Nations said that between 80-90 % of the town, which had a population of 134,000 before the disaster, was in ruins.

Because of the very scale of the disaster, many survivors have still not received any of the aid or assistance arriving daily from around the world, even in the capital and particularly in outlying areas such as Leogane.

The Japanese team was among the first group of helpers to arrive in the town and very virtually overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.

Members of the Japanese JDR team at work at their emergency medical center at the very epicenter of the haiti earthquake

As soon as they established their medical center, the doctors, nurses and other experts were inundated with townspeople seeking help for multiple types of injuries and team members have been working literally 24 hours a day since then.

The team is expected to stay in Haiti about one week.

A second medical team from the non governmental organization Medecins Sans Frontiere were scheduled to join the Japanese team shortly.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), who is the key operator of the JDR system under the management of the Japanese Government, also sent emergency supplies including tents, blankets, plastic sheeting, sleeping bags and water purifiers to Port au Prince from its main regional warehouse in Miami.