Context
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Haiti. The epicentre was located 17km from the capital, Port-au-Prince (PaP), which has more than 2 million inhabitants. Approximately 3.5 million people resided in the areas directly affected by the earthquake. The number of people living in spontaneous settlement sites is estimated at 1.3 million people, while 604,215 people have left Port-au-Prince for outlying departments.
Two months later there is an elephant in the room
The earthquake has damaged the major port in the country in Port-au-Prince, which has been partially restored to allow some humanitarian cargo to pass through the port but is not yet sufficiently rehabilitated to resume normal food import and distribution systems. Approximately 90% of all containerised imports and exports prior to the earthquake transited through the seaports at PaP. While capacity has been partially restored the rainy season and hurricane season pose significant challenges. The earthquake decimated the warehouse and storage capacity in the affected area, and regional warehouses were not widely available prior to the earthquake. Road conditions along the major supply routes are acceptable at the moment, but are severely vulnerable to deterioration and failure in the coming months.