In the hundred days since the earthquake struck Haiti, an unprecedented aid effort has reached more than two million survivors and helped them to begin to rebuild their country and their own lives.

Trickle to a Torrent

Help has come from a wide variety of sources, from aid agencies and the UN, to governments, celebrities and ordinary Haitians. They all helped those affected by the quake pull themselves out of the ruins of their homes and offices, bury their dead and start to look to the future.

The initial bottlenecks in getting aid into the country by land, sea and air have been increasingly overcome with the trickle of aid arriving in the first weeks quickly turning into a torrent.

Healthcare

The initial challenge came in providing emergency medical care for the 300,000 people estimated to have been injured in the quake. Field hospitals were set up. Merlin and the Red Cross alone saw over 5,600 patients and performed almost 400 surgical operations.

Along with other agencies, medical assistance is now reaching rural areas. The situation has now moved beyond emergency relief and increasingly medical staff are dealing with more routine medical issues, such as helping women suffering complications in labour. As well as providing more general medical care now, organisations are setting up vaccination campaigns, which have so far reached half a million people.

Water

Many DEC agencies have helped provide clean drinking, which is now reaching 1.3m people on a regular basis. Sanitation is now becoming a real concern with over 5000 latrines now provided. The hope is to increase this to 21,000 by July, but this remains a huge challenge due to a lack of space in already overcrowded camps and the significant risk of flooding to conventional pit latrines with the rainy season approaching.

Rainy Season

The upcoming months will likely bring heavy rainfall with them, and it is in this time that the relief effort faces its biggest challenge since the earthquake struck.

With the rainy season set to intensify in May 1.2m people have so far received heavy duty plastic sheeting or tents. DEC agencies are now focussing primarily on providing plastic sheeting rather than tents, as there is a lack of space to pitch tents in most camps, and the same waterproof sheets can be used beyond the rainy season to better protect temporary shelters.

Another reason for this decision is now coming into focus – most the tents distributed in Haiti are now leaking which means even more plastic sheeting is needed to help make them waterproof.

While the situation is clearly not ideal, the reality is that there are still many more people than there is space in proper shelters, and so any kind of protection from the elements will no doubt be welcomed and will help the next few months pass that much quicker.

The Future

With the current situation for most situations beginning to take on a resemblance of stability, the focus will shift more and more towards ensuring a promising future for the country. Organisations are now working to support people to feed their families and earn a living through agriculture, while schools are beginning to reopen and children are being encouraged to return to their classrooms where they can.