Among death and destruction, Indians help tirelessly in Haiti

NEW DELHI - Indian army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Pronob K. Roy, and 150 members of the Indian UN contingent in quake-ravaged Haiti have been working without sleep straight for a week, escorting relief teams, providing medical treatment and providing logistics support to the United Nations.

On Jan 12, at 4.53 p.m. (local time), the earth shook with a magnitude of 7.0 in the Caribbean nation, flattening whole swathes of the country, with conservative estimates saying that over 50,000 people have been killed.

The Indian contingent deployed with UN’s Haiti mission, called MINUSTAH, consists of a 140-member Formed Police Unit (FPU) as well as 11 UN police officers. There are also 51 Indians working with Trigyn Technologies Ltd, a Mumbai-based company that provides IT support for UN missions.

The Indian government had initially sent $1 million in cash for emergency relief, and then topped it with another $5 million.

For Roy, who had just landed in Haiti just 24 days ago on deputation to the UN logistics unit, his survival is a miracle - three times over.

“I was supposed to be in the UN headquarters building, but due to my presence in another conference I was lucky the first time,” Roy told IANS over telephone from Port-au-Prince.

The logistics base was located at the foot of the hill, on which the MINUSTAH headquarters, operating from a hotel, had collapsed. The mission’s chief, Hedi Annabi, a Frenchman, his deputy and over 100 UN personnel are reported dead.

The next miracle was when he survived the actual quake in office at the logistics base, with computer, air-conditioner and almirahs falling around him, as cracks bloomed on his office walls. He returned after the quake into the damaged office to see if he could salvage any stuff.

“Bang came the first aftershock in 15 minutes and this time the windows cracked on my back and still I managed to survive,” he recounted.

While the FPU members are safe, their building developed several cracks. “All the personnel are therefore sleeping in the open and not using the concrete structure for their stay.”

With collapsed buildings, strewn bodies and roads clogged, the Indians working with the UN rallied immediately to start giving relief work immediately after the quake.

“I got the first communication from a local who came rushing in saying that the headquarter building which is up the hill had crumbled. The whole city was in a jam and petrol pumps were burning and there was utter chaos all around,” Roy recounted to IANS.

With all the UN senior officials untraceable at the collapsed MINUSTAH headquarters building, Roy, deputy chief of the integrated support services, Minustah’s Logistic Base Crisis Centre, was given powers to take over the situation till his next superior was found alive.

“Within 45 minutes, I went on my aerial sortie to see the situation,” he said.

Indian personnel were also crucial in getting power and water supply restored to the premises of Minustah within a few hours.

“The water pipes had burst and the plumbing had clogged. Bhupinder Singh, a water treatment plant specialist, reported to me at 3 a.m., walking on foot from his collapse house,” he said.

Singh used his ingenuity to connect the water lines and operate the pump station by 6 in the morning.

Indians used to working with lesser materials have been inventive in managing with the collapsed infrastructure, dealing with unimaginable destruction and death on a regular manner.

“When you see a corpse you don’t panic, you call another guy and lift it and put the body in an orderly manner. When you do not have refrigeration container to put it in, you empty a container which has food and keep the body in it and use the food to feed the people.”

The Indian FPUs have been put in charge of escorting the rescue and relief teams that are rushing to Haiti from around the world.

But the Indians have been going beyond their call of duty.

With all hospitals collapsed, urgent medical attention has been given by the FPU, who set up a medical camp within the premises. There are also another 35 Indian nuns working with the Missionaries of Charity, who are also engaged in humanitarian work.

“We have been working for six days without sleep. I don’t know how I have been going on. I really, really want to put on record how amazing our boys have been,” Roy said.