A flood of tears

By Major Dan Stepaniuk

On 7 November — my daughter’s birthday — the Collège Promesse Évangelique in Nerette, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, collapsed at about 10:00 a.m. It was a classic “pancake” effect: the third floor subsided onto the second floor, then the second floor landed on the ground floor, and finally half of that ended up in the basement. The façade was pretty much intact, but the back was a tangled wreck of concrete, steel and dust.

Dozens of children and staff were killed immediately and many others lay buried, seriously injured, in the rubble. The school ran in two shifts — morning and afternoon — so fortunately not all the kids were present at the time of the collapse.

The collapse was reported to MINUSTAH Headquarters within 30 minutes. The Nepalese patrol that area, so we dispatched a platoon of soldiers who helped with the immediate rescue effort. I was itching to help, too, but it was our job to coordinate the rescue, not to swing the picks and shovels ourselves. Initial reports understated the extent of the disaster, and soon we dispatched a platoon of off-duty Filipino soldiers (many in their jogging shorts) and a helicopter for aerial rescue. We also put the Argentine field hospital on stand-by, alerted the field engineers, and sent in reconnaissance parties to check out the structural integrity of the building and see what other aid we could provide.

Toward the end of the first day, my boss called for an operations representative on site to help coordinate things there. I volunteered immediately, collecting gloves, helmet, goggles, headlamp, ballistic eyewear, four litres of water and my 9-mm pistol.

The school was on a narrow, winding road choked with vehicles and people, so we left our jeep about a kilometre away and walked — actually, we pushed and shoved our way in. The military and police were out in force to hold the civilians back. I knew I was getting close when I started to hear wails of anguish.

I trudged past many heavily armed police officers and climbed onto the flat roof of a building behind and slightly below the school. The entire back of the school was collapsed, the roof sloping at a ridiculous angle and chunks of concrete hanging from twigs of rebar. Eventually the Haitians brought up a 60-tonne crane to hold the rest of the building in place, but this took time — several overhead wires had to be removed first.

The school is on the side of a hill, facing a valley full of buildings. That valley looked like a Roman amphitheatre, with literally thousands and thousands of people watching the rescue effort. Many were anxious, but many more were just curious.

I identified myself to the people in charge and told them to ask me for anything they might need. “Major, we need two 26-foot ladders!” I had no idea where to find a ladder of any size, but I told him I would do my best; 10 minutes later I was back with two ladders. “We need water for the diggers.” Done. I found the Red Cross and arranged for them to deliver water.

For many long hours, I helped out wherever I could. I carried shoring timbers and jackposts. I shovelled and dug and hauled rocks and buckets. The sun blazed all day and the sweat poured off me. Sometime around 2:00 p.m. I detected something in the air and recognized … death.

Three trapped people, a teacher and two students. We covered the remains to protect them from gawkers. I assumed that working harder would occupy my mind, but I am a teacher and a father, and my thoughts kept straying to my family, friends and students. One woman, I was told, lost all four of her children here. It was hard not to come unglued.

A urban rescue crew from Fairfax, Virginia arrived late in the afternoon with dogs, microphone sensors and cameras on poles. As the light failed, they began drilling for voids and cavities, and their dogs scurried over the mound looking for people, alive or dead. The throng of spectators headed home to bed. I had the night shift, so I did too.

*****

I arrived a bit early for my night shift and took over from Lieutenant-Commander Ricardo Velasquez of the Chilean Navy. It was quiet, and Mike Marks, my contact with the Fairfax team, had bad news. “We got no hits off the dogs. We got no hits with our listening devices. We got no hits with our cameras. The likelihood is very small that there are any survivors.”

One task remained: mapping the interior of the school to make sure no rooms were missed in the search. Four of the Fairfax guys, geared up like spelunkers, were preparing to enter the structure when I asked to join them. The team leader noted my helmet, goggles and gloves, and approved my request.

Except for the beams from our headlamps, the inside was utterly dark. The four mappers chatted with each other and with me as they did their work.

“So where are you from, Dan?” Classroom A is adjacent to Classroom B and northeast of the small closet.

“I’m from Hamilton. I suppose you guys are from Virginia. Were you involved in the World Trade Centre effort?” To the north of the chapel we have a stairway going down.

“No. We went to the Pentagon. It’s very close to Fairfax County.”

And so on.

Feeling like we were visiting a tomb, I treated everything with respect. A junior classroom, the ceiling hung with chains of colourful fish obviously made by the children. Lunch bags among the broken desks and chunks of concrete. Some of the kids were probably wondering what mom sent for lunch when disaster struck. On the floor, a little white patent-leather shoe.

I saw a pile of photocopies — an exercise for a primary class. On an outline drawing of a cat, the kids were supposed to draw the cat’s face and then describe the cat. “Is it happy ... sad ... sly?” In this room, the ceiling was buckled, but not down. I hope all these kids got out.

Toward the back, the building showed more signs of stress: bowed ceilings, large chunks of concrete on the floor, smashed desks, belongings scattered everywhere, lots of dust. Nearly a day and a half after the collapse, the air was still full of dust. Dangerously unstable, it was accessible only because of shoring timbers and jackposts installed by a rescue team from Martinique. The back of the school was just gone. After a while, the mappers worked in silence.

*****

As I write, I do not know how many children perished in this tragic accident. It must surely rank among the largest single-day tragedies in Haiti’s history. It is particularly cruel because Port-au-Prince escaped most of the destruction from the hurricanes.

The loss of so many young promises at one time is agonizing. My heart goes out to the many families who have had to endure such a terrible loss.

Maj Dan Stepaniuk is the deputy commanding officer of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, an Army Reserve unit in Hamilton, Ontario. Deployed with Task Force Port-au-Prince (Operation HAMLET), he works at MINUSTAH Headquarters as Operations and Tasks Officer at the headquarters of the 7,500-strong Mission des Nations unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH). In civilian life, Maj Stepaniuk is a teacher at Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton.