Damage to infrastructure HAITI

Collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince[edit] Essential services
Amongst the widespread devastation and damage throughout Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, vital infrastructure necessary to respond to the disaster was severely damaged or destroyed. This included all hospitals in the capital; air, sea, and land transport facilities; and communication systems.

The quake affected the three Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) medical facilities around Port-au-Prince, causing one to collapse completely.[43][44] A hospital in Pétionville, a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince, also collapsed,[45] as did the St. Michel District Hospital in the southern town of Jacmel,[46] which was the largest referral hospital in south-east Haiti.[47]


Damaged buildings in JacmelThe quake seriously damaged the control tower at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport[48] and the Port-au-Prince seaport,[49] which rendered the harbour unusable for immediate rescue operations. The Gonaïves seaport, in the northern part of Haiti, remained operational.[49]

Roads were blocked with debris or the surfaces broken. The main road linking Port-au-Prince with Jacmel remained blocked ten days after the earthquake, hampering delivery of aid to Jacmel. When asked why the road had not been opened, Hazem el-Zein, head of the south-east division of the UN World Food Programme said that "We ask the same questions to the people in charge...They promise rapid response. To be honest, I don't know why it hasn't been done. I can only think that their priority must be somewhere else."[46]

There was considerable damage to communications infrastructure. The public telephone system was not available,[29] and Haiti's largest cellular telephone provider, Digicel, suffered damage to its network.[50][51] Although Comcel Haiti's facilities were not severely damaged, its mobile phone service was temporarily shut down.[52][53][54] Fibre-optic connectivity was also disrupted.[55]

According to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), most of the radio stations went off the air and only 20 of the 50 stations in Port-au-Prince were back on air a week after the earthquake.[56][57] RSF also reported that twelve radio stations in Petit-Goâve and five of Léogâne's nine stations were badly damaged.[56] The Agence France-Presse office was in ruins, but within days of the earthquake the agency resumed operations from new premises. The offices of the capital's two leading newspapers, Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, were not severely damaged, but for more than a week they were unable to print.[57]

[edit] General infrastructure

Large portions of the National Palace collapsedThe buildings of the finance ministry, the ministry of education, the ministry of public works, the ministry of communication and culture, the Palace of Justice, the Superior Normal School, the National School of Administration, the Institut Aimé Césaire, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and Port-au-Prince Cathedral were damaged to varying degrees.[58][59][60] The National Palace was severely damaged,[61][62] though President René Préval and his wife Elisabeth Delatour Préval escaped injury.[63][64] The Prison Civile de Port-au-Prince was also destroyed, allowing 4,000 inmates to escape into the streets.[65]


Léogâne, close to the earthquake epicentreMost of Port-au-Prince's municipal government buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the City Hall, which was described by the Washington Post as, "a skeletal hulk of concrete and stucco, sagging grotesquely to the left."[66] Port-au-Prince had no municipal petrol reserves and few city officials had working mobile phones before the earthquake, complicating communications and transportation.[66]

Minister of Education Joel Jean-Pierre stated that the education system had "totally collapsed". About half the nation's schools and the three main universities in Port-au-Prince were affected.[67] The earthquake also destroyed a nursing school in the capital and severely damaged the country’s primary midwifery school.[68]

The Haitian art world also suffered great losses. Artworks were destroyed, and museums and art galleries were extensively damaged, among them Port-au-Prince's main art museum, Centre d'Art, College Saint Pierre and Holy Trinity Cathedral.[69] Some private art galleries were also severely damaged, including the Monnin Gallery in Pétionville,[69] and the Nader Art Gallery and Musée Nader in Port-au-Prince.[70]

The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) at Christopher Hotel[13] and offices of the World Bank were destroyed.[71] The building housing the offices of Citibank in Port-au-Prince collapsed, killing five employees.[72] The clothing industry, which accounts for two-thirds of Haiti's exports,[73] reported structural damage at manufacturing facilities.[74] Up to 200 guests at the collapsed Hôtel Montana in Port-au-Prince are presumed dead.[75]

Buildings shook in Santo Domingo, the capital of the neighbouring Dominican Republic, but no major damage was reported.