Haiti: Earthquake destroys oxygen plant

As if the 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, a tropical storm, and the coronavirus pandemic weren’t enough, the earthquake has destroyed the country’s only oxygen station in the south of the country.

The building that housed the oxygen-concentrating machines on which the area depends, has partially collapsed and the machines have overturned. Etheuss runs a well-known family of vetiver oil mills in the town of Les Cayes, one of the areas hardest hit by Saturday’s earthquake.

We’re trying to restart oxygen production. “It’s our responsibility, because so many people are counting on it,” Kerch John, one of the brothers in charge of the plant, said while showing the damage to the press on Thursday.

The earthquake left sloping roofs and columns at the facility and cement debris damaged tanks, the electrical system, and the delicate network of copper tubes that carry oxygen. “The oxygen generators are upside down,” John said. “We received a promise from the Public Works Department to remove the rubble with bulldozers,” he added.

John said that apart from two oxygen stations in Port-au-Prince, his factory was the only one that supplied local hospitals. With the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, he said, the demand for oxygen increased by 200% last month.

“We have the capacity to supply 40 cylinders of oxygen per day,” John said. “We provide several hospitals.”

The powerful earthquake that struck the southern Haiti Peninsula has killed at least 2,189 people, according to official figures. It is estimated that more than 300 people are still missing, said Serge Cherry, head of civil defense for the southern province, which includes the port of Les Caye.

Official estimates indicate that more than 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, displacing about 30,000 families. Hospitals, schools and churches were also destroyed.

The earthquake was followed by a tropical storm that brought torrential rain and strong winds earlier in the week.

Special aid shipments and shipments from the US government and others began arriving more quickly in Haiti on Thursday, but poverty, insecurity and a lack of basic infrastructure in the Caribbean nation remain major obstacles to accessing food and health care. With them.

In addition, a major hospital in the capital, where many of the wounded were sent, closed for two days from Thursday in protest of the kidnapping of two doctors, one of the few orthopedic surgeons in the country.

The kidnappings were a blow to efforts to control the escalation of criminal violence that threatened the response to the disaster.

Meanwhile, a group of 18 Colombian search and rescue volunteers escorted by police from Jeremy, following a false rumor that they were involved in the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, were escorted from the city of Jeremy. The workers took refuge in the civil defense office on Wednesday and the police escorted them to the airport on Thursday.

The unsolved murder of Moise is believed to have been carried out by a group of Colombian mercenaries.