Haitians mark quake anniversary

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

The normally traffic-clogged streets of the Haitian capital turned quiet Wednesday as businesses closed and people walked in solemn processions to prayer services marking the anniversary of the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.

Many people wore white, a color associated with mourning in Haiti, and sang hymns as they navigated collapsed buildings and rubble from the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that left much of Port-au-Prince in ruins. The government increased the estimated death toll to more than 316,000 people, but it did not explain how it arrived at that number.

Evens Lormil joined mourners in a crowd at the Roman Catholic cathedral, its once-towering spires and vaulted roof collapsed, waiting for a memorial Mass next to what was once a prominent landmark in a ragged downtown. The 35-year-old driver of the collective taxis known as tap-taps said his wife and two children were in the countryside north of the capital, still too traumatized by the quake to attend the service, or even live in the city.

Crisscrossing the central Champ de Mars Plaza were prayer groups who thanked God for sparing them from the earthquake, and others who took advantage of the day to promote women’s rights, oppose the U.N. force that provides security in Haiti, and other causes.

President Rene Preval and former U.S. President Bill Clinton attended a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a new National Tax Office, where many workers were killed in one of the blows to the public sector that paralyzed the government after the earthquake.

Dignitaries from around the world are in Haiti to mark the anniversary. But they also are facing skepticism from a Haitian public that expected more progress toward reconstruction.

Aid groups say only about 5 percent of the rubble from the quake has been removed. At least a million displaced people still are in 1,200 tent-and-shack encampments.