©InfoStanley Clairmont was washing his clothes for university the next day when a massive earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale struck his home town of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Despite government reports that the earthquake only lasted 17 seconds, Stanley says it felt like eternity.
Although Stanley’s house survived the quake, massive cracks in the walls and roof make it dangerous to be inside, particularly with the continued aftershocks in the city. For now, Stanley and his family are living with 100 other families from his neighbourhood in an open area near by.
“We stay out in the open, where there are no walls. We managed to make a shelter with blankets and sheets we got from the house, but it’s not much. I’m sharing with my mother, my grandmother, two sisters and my cousin. Soon after the earthquake, our neighbours started to join us and at one point there were about 150 families in our camp,” says Stanley.
After the quake
©InfoAfter the quake Stanley went out to take photos. He says: “At first I wanted to take pictures of the devastation, but I could see people needed help and I couldn’t just stand there taking photos. My university friends and I started to try and move some rubble where we could see people and help get them out. It was exhausting and there were a lot of dead bodies too – it was difficult to breathe.
“But we managed to save about 13 people. Then I got news that my grandmother was in trouble and trapped under the rubble too.” Fortunately, Stanley managed to get his grandmother out from her collapsed house and took her to several hospitals before finding someone to treat her.
He says: “I ended up spending many days in the hospital with my grandmother and then the Haitian Red Cross helped her. After that I knew I needed to do something to help as well so I went to the Haitian Red Cross office to volunteer."
For the last week I’ve been helping with relief distributions to different camps around Port-au-Prince – I’m just pleased to be able to do something to help. Many camps we visited hadn’t received anything.”
Red Cross volunteer
©InfoStanley was in his fourth year of studying electrical engineering at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince. “I only had to finish my thesis and just had six months to go,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I went to see the university and it’s completely collapsed and I haven’t heard anything from them or the scholarship scheme I was on. It was my dream to get my degree and I just don’t know if that’s going to happen. I just can’t really think about it right now.”
Stanley has started working with the British Red Cross mass sanitation emergency response team as an interpreter and hygiene promotion volunteer.
His role involves helping the five-person team to prevent disease and construct latrines in the many camps that have sprung up in Port-au-Prince since the earthquake struck.
He says: “It’s good to work with the sanitation team and see what they do and I’ll be able to use some of the engineering principles I’ve been learning through my degree.”
Read Choute's story about being rescued from the rubble
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