
The first team to arrive went to Petion-Ville, a district in the south east of the capital Port-au-Prince, to visit a supermarket and an elementary school which have collapsed. All that is left of the school is a huge pile of rubble, with desks and chairs sitting out in the open air. “It was a Christian school, which on a normal day could hold 1,000-2,000 students,” said volunteer Steeve Lemite. “But right now, after the crisis, probably still have 150-200 students beneath the rubble. And probably the parents still have not found the bodies yet. We are still waiting on the government or any other organization to come and help pull the bodies out.” People have no choice but to wait. The volunteers pray for the children, in the hope that the fallen walls can be cleared soon.
At the Caribbean supermarket nearby, the bodyguard who is accompanying the volunteers tells them that his best friend was crushed under falling masonry inside the building. As they drive along the city streets, they see concrete homes which have collapsed. The flimsy steel frames on which they stood were no match for the massive earthquake. There is one pile of rubble after another. For the volunteers, these are no longer images on a television screen but something in front of their very eyes. They are shocked and stunned.

The second team arrived in the country on Sunday morning, local time, after traveling by road from the Dominican Republic. They plan to carry out small-scale distribution of aid and work with a local construction company to set up a co-ordination centre in Port-au-Prince. Its first target is to bring daily necessities to 250 children at an orphanage.
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