The timeline of rescue efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake of 12 January 2010 involves the sequence of events in the days following a highly destructive 7.0 Mw earthquake with an epicenter west of the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. With at least 70% of the city's buildings destroyed, the earthquake also caused damage and loss of life in other parts of the country. The Haitian government experienced a near-collapse and affected people were left mostly to their own resources until foreign aid arrived in the following days. Initial death toll estimates ranged between 50,000 and 200,000.
Tuesday 12 January 2010
16:53 local time (21:53 UTC): the earthquake happened.
People dug through rubble, rescuing survivors and recovering bodies. The bodies were laid out in the streets, some in piles. During the night, many people digging through the rubble used flashlights or torches. The Argentine Air Force Mobile Field Hospital, already deployed at Port-au-Prince, was the only medical facility still open. Argentine helicopters from the United Nations force were helping evacuate the gravely injured people to Santo Domingo.
13 January 2010
Haitian Rescuers searched collapsed buildings for victims. The wounded were taken to hospital in ambulances, police pickup trucks, wheelbarrows, and improvised stretchers. Many hospitals collapsed: on 13 January 2010, the Argentine military field hospital remained open in Port-au-Prince, and it was struggling to attend to the huge numbers of injured. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) reported that at least two hospitals were still in good shape, and their doctors would begin treating about 500 people who needed emergency surgery. Bodies of the victims were piled on the streets. Heavy equipment was needed to dig through the ruins; many people were still trapped in collapsed buildings. A triage center was set up in a parking lot, but the wounded were forced to lie in medical tents to await treatment, due to the many patients, and water was scarce. In Pétion-Ville, people used sledgehammers and their hands to dig through a collapsed commercial center.
The first international team to arrive in Port-au-Prince was ICE-SAR from Iceland, landing within 24 hours of the earthquake. Some rescue teams, such as the ones from Cuba, arrived in Haiti and started their mission. The Peruvian government sent rescue teams, dogs and 50 tons of food transported by two Peruvian Air Force airplanes. Peruvian companies were providing food donations and other basic aid. However, the scale of rescue and relief efforts was yet to meet the need. Because of difficulties reaching some affected areas, some rescue teams tried to enter Haiti through the Dominican Republic. The United States Coast Guard deployed helicopters and several aircraft and cutters to the region to aid in relief work and perform reconnaissance flights over Haiti, which aided in assessing the worst damaged areas. The Coast Guard Cutter Forward arrived in the waters off Port-au-Prince at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday, and together with a Maritime Intelligence Support Team was able to assess some of the damage caused to the port. The Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk also arrived in the coastal waters of Haiti on Wednesday afternoon.
The International Committee of the Red Cross set up a special website to facilitate family contacts, which allowed people in Haiti and abroad to register the names of relatives whom they wanted to contact. It incorporated responses to those queries as they became available. Catholic Relief Services, which has worked in Haiti for 50 years, prepared food and other aid to help those affected, committing US $5 million to help survivors.
At 7pm EST a team of United States Air Force Combat Controllers landed at Toussaint Louverture International Airport and established control of Air Traffic Control duties within 28 minutes to assist in humanitarian aid efforts. The Combat Controllers directed over 2,500 flights without incident from a card table using only hand radios. Under their direction planes were able to take off and land every five minutes, bringing in over 4 million lb. of supplies. The team leader of the Combat Controllers, Chief Master Sergeant Tony Travis, was later recognized as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010 because of their efforts.