Australian aid agencies are rushing to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake.
As remarkable stories of courage and survival are being told in the wake of the Haiti earthquake disaster we focus on the Australian people caught up in the natural disaster.
24 year old Rachel Colbourne Hoffman from Brisbane was working as a humanitarian aid worker with her American husband Joel. They had travelled to the Haiti area with the Mennonite Central Committee, a Christian relief organisation, when the 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck.
Australian media immediately put out the story of the two as officials desperately began trying to contact them. Rachel’s mother Bev Eagy put out an emotional plea for Australians to pray for her daughter as Rachel and Joel’s family began the agonising wait for news on their loved ones.
Luckily Rachel and her husband managed to climb out from the rubble that had once been their apartment building with just cuts and bruises, before contacting family from the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to let them know that they were alive and well.
Joel and Rachel are expected to fly to America to be reunited with family in the coming days.
Another Australian aid worker, Ian Rodgers, is also in the region helping survivors of the quake. He said of the situation: “There’s cries and wailing from people who are trying to find loved ones who are trapped under the rubble.”
Ian Rodgers, Senior Emergency Advisor for Save the Children, has been in Haiti for two years training local communities in surviving natural disasters such as this one. He has no plans to leave the region and appeals for emergency aid to help the thousands of people left homeless and injured by the devastating quake. Watch Australian Aid worker Ian Rodgers on the Haiti earthquake.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that a small number of Australians in the region still remain unaccounted for.
Another Australian charity that is organising aid to the stricken area is World Vision Australia who also had offices in the region. Frank Williams, the National Director of World Vision Haiti told his Australian counterparts: “None of our staff were injured, but lots of walls are falling down,” He also spoke of people screaming all around Port-au-Prince and said that his staff were prevented from leaving the building for a time because of the danger of collapsing walls.
A tsunami warning for the region was lifted earlier today.
You can donate towards emergency aid efforts through World Vision Australia or Save the Children.
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