Haiti still recovering from deadly 2010 earthquake
Newfoundland woman working there says many are still homeless
A Newfoundland woman working in Haiti says the Caribbean country is still struggling to rebuild from a devastating earthquake that struck nearly two years ago.
Thousands of people were killed and more than a million people were left homeless in the aftermath of the 2010 quake, but there are some signs that living conditions are improving now.
"I see a few businesses going up that’s encouraging. I see people moving back from Canada and the U.S. – Haitians moving back in and trying to make a go of things. There are some improvements," said Karen Huxter, who runs Hands Across the Sea, an orphanage and school about three hours from the country’s capital.
Hands Across the Sea is home to almost 20 children and several hundred more attend school there as well.
The organization's buildings were badly damaged by the earthquake.
Huxter said Canadians, especially people from Newfoundland and Labrador, were incredibly generous in helping to fix the damage and add to the facility.
Despite that, Huxter said there are still hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless.
She said Haiti has always battled poverty and a high unemployment rate but she said those problems are worse than ever now.
A 37-year-old western Newfoundland man was one of the people killed in Haiti's earthquake,
James Coates, originally from Deer Lake, was working at a United Nations building in Port-au-Prince when the quake hit on Jan. 12, 2010. The five-storey building was destroyed.