Earth­quake in Haiti causes tremors at Bethel

 When a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake rocked Haiti last month a Bethel stu­dent felt the im­pact. Ju­nior Beene Capre was born in Haiti. She moved to the United States when she was 5-years-old, but says she still has fam­ily who live in Haiti.

"I can’t imag­ine what my peo­ple are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing," she said. "It breaks my heart."

She said they are Ok, but they need help.

"My dad plans on go­ing to Haiti and help­ing them out,"she said. "My un­cle has an or­ga­ni­za­tion that helps the peo­ple of Haiti and a cou­ple of churches are do­nat­ing money to that or­ga­ni­za­tion."

The death toll from the quake stands at 150,000 and officials say that number could double. Aid agencies said food, water and basic supplies were reaching more people, but that clinics were also starting to see more infections and complications from amateur medical treatment.

The U.S. mil­i­tary has ex­panded its role in the ef­fort to get sup­plies to peo­ple who need them. Money is pour­ing in from re­lief agen­cies all over the world, but of­fi­cials in Haiti say much more is needed.

Bill Hossler, Pres­i­dent of the Mis­sion­ary Church, sent out a memo to pas­tors in re­sponse to the dis­as­ter. He re­minded peo­ple to move be­yond sim­ply at­tempt­ing to re­late to the tragedy.

"It is not just enough to feel sym­pa­thy for them and then to walk to the other side of the road," he said in the memo. "You want to be a good Samar­i­tan, but you are not sure what is the best re­sponse. [It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that] we are not a first re­spon­der or­ga­ni­za­tion. We are part of the sup­port and fol­low-up team."

Hossler said prayer will be a vi­tal role for the sup­port and fol­low- up team, prayer for those suf­fer­ing from loss of both loved ones and the abil­ity to live life as they did be­fore. He also said the do­na­tion of re­sources seems to be the most im­me­di­ate form of hands-on help that can be done at this point in time. Plans to send work teams in the fu­ture are be­ing for­mu­lated and will play an im­por­tant part in the re­build­ing process.

"We will di­rect much of the money for Haiti Re­lief di­rectly to the ex­ist­ing Hait­ian church lead­ers for dis­tri­b­u­tion to the fam­i­lies who need it most," Hossler said. "This sys­tem gives the lo­cal Hait­ian churches di­rect con­tact with the peo­ple who will need long-term as­sis­tance."

The earth­quake struck Haiti late Tues­day af­ter­noon on Jan. 12. Its epi­cen­ter was just 10 miles from the densely-pop­u­lated cap­i­tal city of Port-au-Prince. The quake had a mag­ni­tude of 7.0, mak­ing it the worst earth­quake to hit Haiti in 240 years.

The cap­i­tal of Port-au-Prince was hit by two fresh af­ter­shocks on Fri­day Jan. 22, just 10 days af­ter the ini­tial quake, caus­ing much more dam­age and loss of life. The U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey said Haiti faces a high risk of pos­si­bly dam­ag­ing af­ter­shocks for at least 30 days and is set to suf­fer fur­ther tremors for months or even years to come.