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News > Latin America

Cuban Doctors Head to Haiti to Help with Quake Recovery

  • Cuban doctor Elisa Barrios Calzadilla inspects a patient during a house call in Itiuba in the state of Bahia, Brazil November 20, 2013

    Cuban doctor Elisa Barrios Calzadilla inspects a patient during a house call in Itiuba in the state of Bahia, Brazil November 20, 2013 | Photo: Reuters

Published 7 October 2018
Opinion

Two teams of Cuban doctors arrived in Haiti on Sunday morning after a 5.9 magnitude quake shook the country that's still recovering from its 2010 tremor.  

Two teams of Cuban doctors left for Haiti Sunday morning to attend to the victims of the country’s 5.9 magnitude quake that took place on Saturday.

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General Coordinator of the Cuban Medical Brigade, Evelio Betancourt, said that two surgical teams were sent to support Haitian health personnel.

According to Reuters, the earthquake has left 14 dead so far, mainly in Port de Paix and Gros Morne in Artibonite near the quake’s epicenter that struck at a depth of 11.7 kilometers, 20 km off Haiti’s northwest coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The tremor was felt in all parts of the Caribbean country that borders the Dominican Republic, and several towns and cities have registered damaged and destroyed infrastructure and housing.

The Cuban ambassador to Haiti, Luis Castillo, confirmed to Prensa Latina that the embassy went undamaged.

According to Haitian President Jovenel Moise that convoys of food and drinking water kits are on their way to the most affected areas.

The Haitian Civil Protection Agency said early on Sunday that at least 135 people were being treated for injuries.

This is Haiti’s biggest quake since the 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck near the capital, Port-au-Prince, in 2010 that killed over 230,000 of people and cost the already impoverished nation US$7.8 billion to $8.5 billion in damage. According to The Balance, Haiti's gross domestic product has shrunk by 5.1 percent over the past eight years and 55,000 still live in temporary humanitarian camps from the 2010 tremor.

At that time a Cuban medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans doctors was operating in the earthquake-torn Haiti. 

 
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