what cities were closest to the epicenter of the earthquake
Nearly Convulse's Epicenter, a City Ready for Business
LÉOGÂNE, Haiti — Commerce was thriving at the warrenlike shantytown that has sprung to life on what was once this city'due south main square. Shoeshines and hairstyles, coal and soap, Casino brand chocolate and Comme Il Faut cigarettes, even new homes synthetic from salvaged forest and sheet metal — each could be had for a toll.
Just there were more than sellers than buyers, and not much profit. Mona Mondesir, 22, made most 50 cents for washing a load of laundry in two big tubs. Maglaide Auguste, 30, was charging about $5 to braid hair.
Amania Lemaine, 20, with fruits and vegetables spread on a textile before her, said she was making little. "At that place's no economy, so sometimes people turn down to buy things for the existent price," she said. "Sometimes the toll they can pay is the cost I bought information technology for."
Merlise Charles, 36, explained why she was difficult at piece of work mashing sweet potatoes for a large pot of stew to be sold throughout the day, when she expected little render. "I just demand something to do," she said.
Paradigm
Information technology is the thirst for normalcy, non gain, that seems to drive business here in the foursquare, where more than 500 families — some 2,500 people — have moved since the earthquake, according to a list compiled by a commission of 10 chosen to help bring club to the camp.
It took days for relief to begin to reach Léogâne, a urban center of about 130,000 people near the epicenter of the earthquake, about 18 miles from Port-au-Prince. Almost none of the buildings that collapsed here take been excavated. No one knows how many people died in the Église de Saint Rose, which once dominated the square merely is now only a mountain of rock side by side to a crumpled blueish funeral home. The metropolis hall, though damaged, nonetheless stands.
The square was in one case a market place with stalls and storage areas, merely in 2002 quondam President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ordered information technology razed to make fashion for a park, the people here said. It was not a pop decision. The market was quickly demolished; the park project languished for years.
Now, the foursquare is village, plaza and marketplace in ane. Non a donated tent is in sight, but Carmalite Henry, 51, was watching as two men built a small shack, about eight anxiety square, for her family of four. She paid them well-nigh $50, money borrowed from friends.
Gerome Julie, a mother of 4, said she had built her own small hut, digging holes for the posts and spending about $60 on nails, woods and metal. Asked if it was watertight, she said: "I don't know. Information technology hasn't rained yet."
She was selling toilet paper, laundry detergent and lather from an inventory she had earlier the quake, making a quarter in turn a profit on each item, she said.
Prototype
Nearby, Gary Pierre and his shoeshine box were planted in their usual spot. "I never moved," he said. "I come hither every day, fifty-fifty the solar day of the earthquake." But at present, information technology is more than often food, not coin, that changes hands. "I clean your shoes, and then you give me some food," he said. "I behave water for you, and and then you call me: 'The nutrient is ready, bring your bowl.' "
Just then, Duvery Elivert, a college student, walked up, handed him a coin and propped a dusty blackness shoe on the box, just as he had always done on Sundays before church.
Fifty-fifty the lottery, or bolèt, is on its mode dorsum. On the square, there were at least three places to buy tickets starting for equally little equally a couple of pennies. At one lottery seller, Ronald Heart Bank — the impressive name was written on a slice of scrap metallic propped against the curb — business was irksome. "At that place is no coin," said the proprietor, Ronald St. Hubert. "Merely people believe in the lottery."
The square has seen trivial in the way of humanitarian relief, said Fednel Sainsulme, the secretary of the campsite committee. Mr. Sainsulme said the committee, which included two policemen, patrolled at nighttime, reported to the mayor and tried to negotiate for the orderly distribution of donated goods.
When a homo from a nonprofit group called Hays PureWater for All appeared with a simple filter that converts common salt water to a chlorine solution that can disinfect water, a committee fellow member volunteered to distribute the chlorine by the capful. Other camps have selected committees.
Earlier the quake Mr. Sainsulme was a pastor, lensman and teacher; his working life was not so piece of cake to resume. The nine-room schoolhouse where he used to teach, like every other schoolhouse in Léogâne, collapsed. "I am merely waiting for God," he said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/americas/02leogane.html
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