Facts about Haiti a year after devastating quake

By The Associated Press

Some facts about Haiti in the year since the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake:

- The Haitian economy contracted by 7 percent following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that the government said killed an estimated 230,000-300,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 buildings.

- More than 1 million displaced people, including 380,000 children, are still in some 1,200 tent-and-shack encampments.

- The U.N. estimates that 650,000 people will still be living in camps at the end of 2011.

- More than 3,500 dead from cholera and more than 155,000 sickened since an outbreak began in October.

- Americans have donated more than $1.4-billion to help earthquake survivors and help the impoverished country rebuild, with about 38 percent of the total spent to provide recovery and rebuilding aid, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy survey of 60 major relief organizations. The amount of aid was short of the $1.6 billion pledged by Americans after the South Asian tsunami and the share of donations spent is about the same, the survey found.

- The government of Haiti has received $824 million of $4.6 billion pledged though end of 2011 for reconstruction at an international donors conference in New York.

- The earthquake created an estimated 20 million cubic meters of rubble, enough to fill dump trucks parked bumper to bumper to reach more than halfway around the globe, but less than 5 per cent of the rubble has been cleared.

- Only 15 per cent of the temporary housing that is needed has been built and relatively few permanent water and sanitation facilities have been constructed, according to the aid group Oxfam. ---

Sources: World Bank; Unicef; U.N.; Haitian Ministry of Health; The Chronicle of Philanthropy; UN. Office of the Special Envoy; Oxfam;

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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