Dozens of nations and organizations today pledged almost $10 billion in immediate and long-term aid to help Haiti recover from the recent devastating earthquake, just hours after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a day-long donors’ conference by calling for the wholesale rebuilding of the country.
Thousands of Haitians are gaining a semblance of normalcy following the recent devastating earthquake in their homeland by gaining employment and rebuilding their neighborhoods through a cash-for-work scheme run by the United Nations.
At 4:53 p.m. local time on January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Hispaniola Island, just 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today, January 13, 2010, issued an urgent call to the international community to assist Haiti following yesterday’s catastrophic earthquake that has devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation’s capital.
The severe earthquake that struck Haiti and the Dominican Republic has inflicted large-scale damage, including on hospitals and health facilities, and large numbers of casualties are feared.
Several major donors have made multi-year commitments to provide significant funding to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) which aims to save scores of thousands of lives by providing virtually immediate financing in sudden-onset crises, like earthquakes or hurricanes, or for ongoing but neglected emergencies.