Update: 08/09/21 Mission completed:

The Team has returned to the UK having completed quarantine.

Update: 30/08/21: Team have departed Haiti.

They directly assessed 48 buildings of public interest (primarily hospitals and schools), to protect people from unsafe buildings and speed the reestablishment of facilities critical to the recovery. As well as initiating the Damage Assessment Coordination Centre (DACC), to coordinate Haitian assessors to conduct similar building safety assessments of critical buildings. This is to meet the immediate recovery needs of the affected communities. Next is 10 days quarantine, within the current rules this will be carried out in Spain before returning to UK.

Update: 25/08/21

The Team is in Les Cayes and engaged in damage assessments, it is critical first step in the recovery process in ensuring people can get back into their homes, back into their livelihoods or education and help aid be targeted to where it is needed most. The Team have assessed 38 critical structures over the last 2 days, ensuring that hospitals, churches and schools are either safe to use or evacuated to protect their occupants. This includes the Hopital Immaculee Conception in Les Cayes that is caring for many of the huge number of victims injured by the earthquake.

Background:

On Saturday 14th August a powerful 7.2 Magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in a similar location to the devastating 2010 earthquake.

The recent earthquake has resulted in over 1500 fatalities and several thousand injured. Current estimates are that 12,200 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged, leaving over 30,000 people displaced.

Rescue efforts have been compounded by the tense politically situation and Tropical Storm Grace moving across the region.

SARAID have deployed at the request of the Haiti Ambassador in London to provide immediate humanitarian relief and will focus on leading the damage assessment phase. This is the next step beyond the rubble pile and aims to get people back into their homes where possible and begin the process to recovery.

SARAID have a wealth of experience in leading this phase and will be drawing on knowledge developed in Beirut in 2020 and Albania in 2019. The charity is renowned for its structural engineering capability both in the engineers it deploys overseas but also its UK based support network.

SARAID will be working with the UN cells on the ground to establish a damage assessment coordination centre and will be working with local authorities to establish a triage system to categorise the safety and habitability of damaged structures. A key part of our work is to train local engineers and provide them with clear guidance to continue this work over the long months ahead.

We are a non-governmental charity that funds our work solely on the generosity of the donations we receive. A deployment of this nature is costly, especially when accounting for the necessary covid quarantine upon return to the UK. Our current estimate for the cost of deployment is in excess of £30,000. Any support towards this total is hugely appreciated and every single penny is spent directly on the deployment.

Please help us help those in need.

Thank You