Hi, all my TH friends,
The first earthquake was felt a little even in Santo Domingo. I was in a Shopping Mall when the floor started slightly to move. People stood up, some of them running for the stairs, but it stopped after couple of seconds. The situation in Haiti is really terrible. It was said today in the morning that they are already over 220,000 dead and it is not end of it. Every day new corps have been found. Dominican Republic have been trying to help as much as we can - there are many Help Centers in the city, ordinary people, students, small and big companies donate food, water and money. Every day there are at least seven helicopters flights to Puerto Principe to bring injured persons to our hospitals. Hospitals in Santo Domingo and in Santiago are receiving pacients from Haiti every day, hospitals in border cities like Jimani are already overcrowded with Haitians. There is sertain flow of Haitian refugees to our territory but not so massive as it was sometimes presented in foreign newspapers. It was fear from some epidemies and deseases but it seems that everything is still under control from this point of view.
The question with final destination of the donations could be a problem. It is always better to do it through Red Cross or some official insitutions and in direct form. Some of the help and donated money could end somewhere else in spite of all the possible efforts but hopefully it will be only exception because there is common interest of everybody in the world to help these 9 millions of devastated people in Haiti.
Lobo (Bobadilla)
