Shelter problems loom largest for Haiti: commander

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Sat. Apr. 17 2010 4:33 PM ET

The commander of a Canadian military destroyer that was dispatched to Haiti in the wake of the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake says a shortage of livable homes is the biggest hurdle facing Haitians desperate to overcome the disaster.

Sailors aboard HMCS Athabaskan returned to Canada in March, after providing medical care and water, and rebuilding orphanages. They were based in the town of Leogane. About 90 per cent of the homes and businesses there were destroyed by the quake.

"Shelter now for the remainder of the population is going to be one of the key issues, I think, so they can start helping themselves," Peter Crain, the ship's commander, told CTV News Channel on Saturday. "They're into the rainy season now."

HMCS Athabaskan, one of two Canadian military vessels dispatched to Haiti, arrived in the devastated country seven days after the magnitude-7.0 tremor that killed about 200,000 people.

Its crew was tasked with providing light engineering help, humanitarian aid and medical assistance.

"The first thing I noticed was the absolute devastation. The area we were working in was very close to the epicentre, and I was seeing 90 per cent of the homes and businesses were destroyed there," Crain recalled.

The second thing he noticed was a young girl who had been injured.

"She was going to have her hand removed because it was crushed in the earthquake," Crain said. "And she stood there, not a tear in her eye."

"That really epitomized the Haitian people that I saw there. How strong, how resilient they were in the face of this disaster."

After the quake, an unprecedented effort began to load supplies and prepare the crews of HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax in just a few days.

The 225 crew members on HMCS Halifax, which returned home on March 2 after a six week deployment, focused on the town of Jacmel. HMCS Athabaskan and its crew of 240 returned to Canada on March 17.

"We were sort of the fire department," Crain said. "We arrived and we helped get the country back on its feet" after municipal and federal governments there, and some of the large NGOs, were hobbled by the disaster.

"We were in an area that didn't have a lot of help after the earthquake -- and they needed us."