DISASTERS

Recovery Stalls in Haiti

Port-au-Prince still in ruins six months after quake.

It has been six months since 1.5 million Haitians, those lucky enough to survive the massive earthquake, were displaced and left on the street. And in that time, only 28,000 of them have moved into new homes. Port-au-Prince is still in ruins and the streets are lined with makeshift tents as people wait for new lodging that is too slow in coming. The weak central government has been overwhelmed by the complexity of dealing with the cleanup, and worried about encouraging residents to return to seemingly undamaged homes, afraid that structural damage still lingers beneath the surface. Still, international aid organizations are finding some positives. “We haven’t had a major outbreak of disease,” said one U.N. representative. “We haven’t had a major breakdown in security.”