Catholic Relief Services details some of the horror.
In an e-mail from the capital, Port-au-Prince, Zelenka told his colleagues at CRS headquarters in Baltimore that damage was “incredible all around.”
Robyn Fieser, CRS regional information officer, shared part of Zelenka’s message with Catholic News Service Jan. 13 and said Zelenka wrote that the Haitian government has not made any announcement about rescue and recovery efforts.
“On the radio stations there has been only wild music,” Fieser said Zelenka wrote. “People have been screaming and chanting all over the place. People are chanting and praying. It’s the disaster of the century.”
Zelenka reported that the only rescue efforts he and his staff have seen are by people digging through rubble with their hands.
Shocking and shameful that people will die because the country was already sunk into such poverty and the government was so corrupt.
More from Florida:
Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., home to 80,000 Haitians, told CNS he had been in touch via e-mail with Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio in the country.
“He tells me the devastation is incredible,” Bishop Wenski said. “He said he toured the city last night and it was quite devastating. Priests and nuns were in shock.”
Archbishop Auza told the Vatican missionary news agency Fides that 100 priests and seminarians also were killed. The clergy, members of the Montfort order, were in Port-au-Prince on retreat.
A h/t to CNS
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