Breaking News: Haiti hit by a 7.0 quake

[wautd]

U.S. forces last week turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital from the damaged, congested airport in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, prompting a complaint from French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet. The plane landed safely the following day.

What type of plane was it? I heared they were only allowing C-130's now which makes sense because they are fast to unload (and a speedy landing/unloading/takeoff is of the essense right now.

"People always want it to be their plane ... that lands,"

It's not a fucking competition

[Lonestar]

What type of plane was it? I heared they were only allowing C-130's now which makes sense because they are fast to unload (and a speedy landing/unloading/takeoff is of the essense right now.

If you mosey on over to navy.mil and other DoD websites you'll see members of the 82nd disembarking from chartered civilian airliners as well as USAF airplanes. I'm sure that the argument the French will give will be along the lines of "Feh! They should not have airlifted light infantry in instead of our field hospital!"

[Lonestar]

I see that my old ship is being sent over to Haiti. Interesting, as it's a West Coast ship.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I see that my old ship is being sent over to Haiti. Interesting, as it's a West Coast ship.

Sea Skimmer and I were discussing the idea that this would be the time for the Navy to justify its existence at its current strength, by an massive "send everything" commitment of everything they could possibly free up to stand off Haiti rendering what aid as they can, and reactivating all kinds of reserve vessels like the crane ships and so on for doing repairs and aiding in unloading. I wouldn't be surprised if Mercy is activated on the west coast to go aid Comfort in providing the long term hospital care that the country will need with most of its hospitals destroyed, and we see other activations, and ships detailed from the west coast.

[Lonestar]

The BKH was on it's way to Panama for a port visit, which is probably why the order came down for it to head to Haiti.

[Broomstick]

Let me explain something about the Port-au-Prince airport. It's Haiti's biggest and best airport, and in most of the industrialized world it would be considered adequate for general aviation at best. The runway is under 10,000 feet - as a small airplane pilot, I have been based at "small" airports with longer runways than that. There are no taxiways - well, OK, a few spurs off the runway (and there is only one - again, of the 5 US general aviation airports I've been based at 3 have had multiple runways) but no system for airplanes to move from one end of the airport to the other other than the runway. This requires "back taxi" operations to position airplanes for take-off, which hog up the runway while they're occuring and slow down operations. Unlike the usual system, where an airplane lands and pulls off the active runway immediately, at this airport the plane has to go to the end of the runway, turn around, and drive back on the runway to get to the ramp/plane storage areas. Obviously, while that is happening other airplanes can't be landing or taking off. That's why the ends of the runway are sort of bulbous, to provide enough pavement to allow airplanes to turn around. It really slows things down. This is considered potentially hazardous even for small, GA airplanes at low-traffic airports - they running freakin' passenger jets out of there at high volume.

I had actually wondered why things were limited to 100 flights/day - even with limited ramp space I thought more could be operated. Then I saw that same picture (the one you linked to on Wikipedia) yesterday and found out why.

Yes.

As it happens, my closest GA airport, the one I fly out of most often, also has no taxi-ways and uses back-taxi procedures. It takes about 5-6 minutes to complete a landing and get an airplane off the runway - a runway about half the length of what is in use in Haiti. That limits you to about 10 flights an hour, which would be extraordinarily busy for my local airport, but pathetic for a humanitarian airlift for 3 million people. With competent air traffic control (let's assume the military controllers are competent) you can probably squeeze more in than at my local airport which has no tower and traffic is controlled by the pilots. I assume they are not flying in and out of Port-au-Prince after dark due to lack of power, so call it 12 hours a day for flights, maybe 14 if you extend into twilight. That's 120-140 flights maximum IF everything goes absolutely perfect. Nothing goes perfectly, and given the longer runway and everything you probably won't get that max-flights-per-hour consistently. Hence, only about 100 flights a day. If you try to squeeze more in the odds of an accident go way up. Larger airplanes can get more stuff in and out per flight, but whatever you send not only has be able to land in under 10,000 feet but also take off on that runway (airplanes usually can land in a shorter distance than they can take off).

(One of the "tricks" you can do is have two airplanes taxi out, one behind the other, both lined up for take off. The first one takes off, makes the departure turn away from the airport, then the second takes off less than a minute later on a slightly different course. But that isn't always feasible due to various constraints, and requires coordination and organization. You can NOT do that for landings, as the consequences of an overrun are just too dire, but it could speed up departures. That's just one example of the problems/solutions/complexities that come into play).

Now you know why prior to the earthquake cargo came to the sea port and not the air port - the airport was for passenger service, mostly. Gary, Indiana's general aviation airport has significantly greater capacity than Haiti's national airport. So, for that matter, does Valparaiso, Indiana (two runways, taxiways, ample ramp and hangar space). Lansing, Illinois has shorter runways, but it has two of them, taxiways, and again ample ramp and hangar space.

In other words my little area of the US, within 50 km of my home, has about 3 times the airport capacity of the Port-au-Prince airport. And that's not counting several other smaller fields, PLUS the proximity of Chicago's Midway and the South Bend, Indiana regional airports. We have 3 times the capacity just with our "too small to be commercial" fields.

[Broomstick]

Let me put this another way - because Gary airport has a taxiway, using just the long runway and professional air traffic control, even with no power at the airport you could, in theory, run 40 operations per hour (an "operation" is either a take off or landing. That's one every 90 seconds - it's pretty damn fast but US civilian airports can and do accomplish that. It's easier with power at the airport, but in good weather it can be done even without lights and fancy navigation systems). That's four times what the Port-au-Prince airport can handle. That's 480 operations in a 12 hour day, 560 in a 14 hour "twilight operations" day. Realistically, this probably would not be done, but 400 operations a day at Gary is quite feasible, simply because they have a functional taxiway!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Broomstick, with military pilots it's entirely possible they're doing MITO of as little as 15 seconds, though I doubt that transport aircraft pilots are trained to run it that tight, but definitely the bomber and tanker pilots were back in the cold war. But they are trained military pilots, regardless, so I think they might be doing 30 second MITO, easily.

[Sea Skimmer]

The nuclear capable bombers do still train for that today; but it doesn’t work unless you have a taxiway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7niLYSVFo

C-130s might be able to do it from Port Au Prince only because they don’t need the whole runway, they could stage from the ramp and takeoff in a swarm. But the last thing we need is someone wrecking on the runway.

[Broomstick]

The bottleneck is getting the airplanes positioned on the runway for take off. Without a taxiway that will take multiple minutes per plane, not seconds. So, lined up at the end of a runway, yes, 15 second intervals is possible but you have to get the airplanes to the end of the runway. Having no taxiways is a huge, huge bottleneck. If the military could set up even temporary ones of some sort it would speed things up enormously, tripling or quadrupling the number of flights per hour, but setting that up would take time.

[Sea Skimmer]

They aren’t going to be able to build a taxiway in less then several weeks that can take more then a C-130, unless we waste a bunch of sorties bringing in heavy equipment and steel matting. Even then it would take a lot of time. Looking at that airport, a C-130 could already just use the runway between the two existing ramps to unload on then takeoff in the opposite direction, so this doesn’t gain us much. Any major improvements are going to have to aid for material brought in by sea.

[FSTargetDrone]

A Time online report has already mentioned the lack of open space; in fact, the growing "tent cities, sprouting up like blue-tarpaulin clusters 
amid the capital's ocean of gray dust and debris, were themselves taking 
up most open spaces, from soccer fields to parking lots, making the flyers' 
jobs trickier if not riskier." In the case of the reporter's first ride into Port-au-Prince (I believe aboard a USN helo?) an Air Force officer was looking for possible touchdown or drop sites; on the reporter's second flight though, the Blackhawk crew ended up dropping the supplies from the air -- apparently the risk of this was less than the chance of the refugees being injured by the rotor blades. (This I found darkly amusing though: "Like the 
good nervous civilian I am, I started helping the crew throw MRE boxes out 
myself so we could ascend again as quickly as possible.")

It's right here for anyone who wants to look at it.

Regarding France's International Co-operation Minister Alain Joyandet's complaint, the president of France had this to say:

Page last updated at 14:35 GMT, Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Sarkozy quells Haiti rift with US

By Hugh Schofield

BBC News, Paris

Nicolas Sarkozy has moved to defuse a potentially embarrassing row with the US over claims that France is being sidelined in the aid effort in Haiti.

The French president's office praised the US's "exceptional mobilisation" and its "essential role... on the ground".

He was responding to signs of tension that appeared over the weekend.

France's International Co-operation Minister Alain Joyandet complained that a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned back by US troops.

American forces have been running Port-au-Prince airport, and have not been able to accommodate all relief flights.

Mr Joyandet - who was in Haiti - said he had issued a formal protest to the US authorities via the French embassy, and that his actions were backed by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

He was quoted as saying: "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti."

Hurt pride

But now the Elysee Palace has issued a statement explicitly praising the US for its lead role in the emergency, and denying any breakdown in relations.

The statement says that Mr Sarkozy has had a telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama, in which they pledged to "unite their efforts to confront the urgent humanitarian situation, and, later, to respond to the vast task of reconstruction".

Underlying the episode is a tangible sense of hurt pride that France is being relegated to a secondary role in a country long regarded as part of its own sphere of influence.

France was colonial master in Haiti up until the famous slave revolt 200 years ago, and French is still an official language there.

The crisis has unleashed a vast outpouring of support and sympathy in France, which is home to some 80,000 Haitian nationals.

Charities have received more than 15m euros (£13m) from private donors - in addition to the 20m euros provided by the government.

France has also sent 240 emergency workers and police to help with the rescue effort, while two navy ships and five aircraft shuttle in supplies.

However, the fact that the United States is so clearly in charge of the operation does rankle with some in France - particularly those with a predisposition to mistrust anything American.

As one blogger put it on the website of Le Figaro newspaper: "The US aid to Haiti constitutes a new case of 'shock doctrine' - ie taking advantage of a natural calamity to subjugate a disorientated populace to the desires and orders of a financial and industrial oligarchy."

However most French people are far less hostile - recognising that Haiti is in America's backyard, and that America alone has the resources to react on the scale required.

Eh, much ado about nothing. It's one irritated minister and a few bloggers mouthing off.

[Edward Yee]

I hope -- or rather, do? -- that this is outdated, but the Independent has there being about to be a second runway opened near the city of Jacmel, Haiti to accept inbound C-17 flights, while another will open in the Dominican Republic soon. Also, re: that 100 flights/day number that Broomstick brought up? That's better than the 60 flights/day from last week at Toussaint Louverture International; the Daily Mail claimed that according to the colonel in charge of directing flights, "there had been 600 takeoffs and landings since he took over the one-runway airport’s traffic on Wednesday, though 50 flights had been diverted."

The Times Online (UK) also reported that a Monday airdrop of 15,000 litres of water and 15,000 "daily rations" from "a US Hercules aircraft" (C-130 of unspecified variant) was deemed successful.

[wautd]

A new 6.0 earthquake just occured

[[R_H]]

A new 6.0 earthquake just occured

CBC

Haiti has been hit by a 6.1-magnitude aftershock, shaking buildings and sending people from the nation's capital fleeing into the streets just over a week after a devastating earthquake.

So far, there have been no reports of injuries or damage in Port-au-Prince or surrounding areas. Haiti has been hit by a series of aftershocks since last week's 7.0-magnitude quake, with most ranging in magnitiude from 4.0 to 5.0, but Wednesday's aftershock has been the strongest.

"This definitely is considered a strong earthquake with the potential to cause some major damage," CBC meterologist Johanna Wagstaffe said.

She said serious shaking would have been felt up to 200 kilometres away from the centre.

CBC's David Common, reporting from Port-au-Prince, said the aftershock lasted about 10 seconds.

Common said it's difficult to differentiate damage caused by the original earthquake and that that may have been caused by the aftershock, but there have been no reports of major damage or people trapped.

"This was a pretty strong aftershock and there were a number of buildings that were in very poor condition that would have taken a bit of a nudge to fall over. This probably did it in some cases."

But Common said most people have not been staying indoors, fearing that aftershocks could bring the rest of the buildings down.

"I know that in places where people were inside, they quickly moved outside because of this," he said. "It was brief but very strong. We saw that the trees swaying, cars were moving around on the road.
Ship sent to remove debris

Meanwhile, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is sending a ship to Haiti's main port to help remove debris that has blocked the delivery of supplies as the U.S. ramps up its relief efforts in the country.

Gates, speaking in India, said the ship would carry cranes and could help get the port back in operation within a week or two.

Relief workers have said the damaged port has prevented large ships from docking and stymied the delivery of food and emergency supplies to victims of last week's earthquake.

Bottlenecks at the damaged harbour and at the capital's airport continue to make it difficult to distribute supplies

About 2,200 U.S. marines have joined 9,000 soldiers who were already on the ground. Helicopters have been dropping food off at distribution points.The U.S. military had been criticized for its organization of the single-runway airport at Port-au-Prince, with some complaining about how they were prioritizing flights.

But the U.S. air force said Tuesday it had raised the facility's daily capacity to 180 flights, from 30 before the quake.

Meanwhile, Alain Jaffre, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said the UN agency hoped to help 100,000 people by Wednesday.But so far, 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations have been distributed in Haiti. Officials say around three million people are in need. The WFP said it needs to deliver 100 million ready-to-eat rations n the next 30 days.

The death toll from the quake is estimated at more than 200,000, with about 70,000 bodies recovered and trucked off to mass graves. Around 250,000 have been injured 1.5 million left homeless.

But rescue workers are still pulling out survivors from the rubble, a week after thousands were killed by the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti and days after most experts believe victims can survive.

[CJvR]

The Google maps satelite shots are post-quake now.
You can see the tents cities and collapsed buildings all over the place as well as the overworked airport.

[Solauren]

Haiti is literally ripping itself apart. (Geologically).

[Kodiak]

Haiti is literally ripping itself apart. (Geologically).

If these quakes don't subside and go away a panicked and terrified populace is going to start tearing the country apart in new and horrifying ways, not just geologically. People can only take so much and most of Haiti is beyond the breaking point.

[Solauren]

Haiti is literally ripping itself apart. (Geologically).

If these quakes don't subside and go away a panicked and terrified populace is going to start tearing the country apart in new and horrifying ways, not just geologically. People can only take so much and most of Haiti is beyond the breaking point.

I'm hoping it doesn't get that bad.

Mind you, if I was in charge of the Dominicon Republic (did I spell that right), I'd be moving military assets to the border as a 'just in case'. (in addition to humanitarian efforts).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I believe the Dominican Republic has already moved the military to block off any access by Haitians into their territory, i.e. they don't want a flood of refugees coming in.

[Broomstick]

Airport and Google Maps update:

As Google has updated their Haiti images you can now zoom in on the airport for a closer look. There are tire-track semi-circles all up and down the runway from fast turn-arounds, as well as the usual landing skid-marks on the ends. If you look at the ground next to the runway you can also see tire-tracks in airplane-landing gear configuration as well - apparently the ground is stable enough for some aircraft to get off the runway and taxi over the grass but you can't do that with every sort of airplane, the bigger they are the more problematic it is. They are also parking some airplanes on the grass, apparently saving the ramp for the largest airplanes that really need to have pavement under them.

That is a hell of a busy airport right now.

I just don't see them increasing capacity there over what they currently are handling. Folks are just going to have to accommodate reality. AND we need to get the sea port functional again ASAP.

[CaptainChewbacca]

A 6.1 aftershock? I was afraid of that. Hopefully its this quake series' last hurrah.

[FSTargetDrone]

The Google Maps update:

This is quite striking. Pull the map just south east of where it starts and have a look at the National Palace:



Pan around and you can see smoke, piles and piles of debris, etc. I'm looking at the port and you can make out large cracks in the ground and cranes in the water.

Interestingly, I can't spot any large naval vessels anywhere near the port or out to sea. However, the water views may have not been updated. I know there are 2 Canadian vessels in the area as well as the carrier Carl Vinson, but I don't see any of these, or anything close.

[FSTargetDrone]

USNS Comfort arrives; more foreign aid coming:

U.S. Hospital Ship Reaches Haiti; Military Role Grows

Andres R. Martinez and Bill Faries Andres R. Martinez And Bill Faries – 2 hrs 1 min ago



This photo provided by the Navy Visual News Service shows the USNS Comfort anchored off the coast of Haiti Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010. The nearly 900-foot floating hospital dropped anchor off the coast of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday morning, but the ship was close enough Tuesday night to take aboard its first patients.
(AP Photo/Navy Visual News Service, Petty Officer 1st Class Troy D. Miller)


Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort reached Haiti’s coast today, bolstering the relief operation’s capacity to treat quake-related injuries as the American military presence on the island surges.

The USNS Comfort, which was used to tend to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and helped with World Trade Center recovery efforts, can handle 30 to 50 patients at a time. The ship has 12 operating rooms and 1,000-bed hospital. The U.S. has ordered 4,000 more troops to Haiti, diverting them from deployments to Europe and the Middle East, Agence France-Presse reported today.

The U.S. bolstered its presence in the country and offshore to 11,000 soldiers and sailors yesterday, with troops landing at the ruins of the presidential palace. The Haitian government has handed control of the country’s only international airport to the U.S. military while officials of the nations providing relief are coordinating daily with Haiti’s president or prime minister, Major General Daniel Allyn said yesterday.

The Haitian government has buried more than 72,000 bodies and the overall death toll from the 7-magnitude earthquake may be higher than 200,000, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said yesterday.

More than 30 U.S. military and Coast Guard helicopters are being used and 15 more will arrive tomorrow, the U.S. Southern Command said in an e-mailed statement. At least nine ships are operating near Haiti, including the USS Carl Vinson, and seven more are headed there.

Another Earthquake

An earthquake measuring 6.1 struck Haiti today, eight days after the devastating temblor, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Today’s quake was centered 59 kilometers (36 miles) to the west-southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 9 kilometers, the USGS said in a preliminary e-mailed report. It struck at 6:03 a.m. local time, the USGS said.

Rescue workers with the New York police and fire departments reported “violent shaking” yet were able to continue working, according to an e-mailed statement from the police department. The 76-member team, which includes four police dogs, pulled two children alive from the rubble of a brick building last night.

Buildings shook in Port-au-Prince and people fled to the streets, the Associated Press reported. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the earthquake was located too far inland to generate any tidal waves in the Caribbean, AP said.

‘Sleeping in Tents’

“Our central office here in Port-au-Prince shook considerably -- we are sleeping in tents on the lawn outside,” said Kristie van de Wetering, communications manager for CHF International-Haiti, in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. “Of course, it shook us up, especially as we have not really felt any aftershocks in the past 24 hours or so.”

AFP said a crashing sound suggested an already damaged building may have collapsed. AP said wails of terror rose from survivors of the earlier quake as people poured out of unstable buildings.

The latest quake struck as the U.S. dispatched more ships to help clear Haiti’s ports and speed up supply of food, water and medicine to victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake while rescuers extended the search for survivors.

“You cannot fully meet the needs of over 2 million people just using helicopters,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in New Delhi today after signing deployment orders for harbor- clearing ships and other vessels to help restore Port-au- Prince’s devastated shipping facilities.

Lives Saved

So far, 120 people have been pulled alive from rubble, John Holmes, UN emergency relief coordinator, said.

“In logistics terms, we are beginning to turn a corner, but recognize that there is a huge way to go before we can get it to work as well as we want it to,” Holmes said.

Haiti has turned down the Dominican Republic’s offer to contribute troops to the United Nations mission, said Luis Lithgow, the Dominican Republic’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

U.S. and UN troops and rescue teams have stepped up relief efforts as relatives of the missing begged them to keep up the search.

More than 1.5 million people are homeless, the European Commission said in a statement on its Web site, citing the Haitian government.

“We will never know what the death toll was,” Edmond Mulet, head of the UN mission in Haiti, said in a videoconference.

More Troops

The UN Security Council yesterday unanimously approved a U.S.-drafted resolution to raise the authorized strength of its peacekeeping force in Haiti by 3,500 soldiers and civilian police.

The new troops will reinforce about 7,000 soldiers and 2,000 police officers already in the country. The added personnel will be used to secure aid corridors in Port-au-Prince and routes from northern ports and the neighboring Dominican Republic, Alain LeRoy, head of UN peacekeeping, said. That may help alleviate concern that food, water and medicine aren’t reaching victims quickly enough.

Japan will send about 100 military personnel to provide medical aid, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said today in Tokyo, quadrupling the country’s aid workers in Haiti.

The 40 medical professionals and support staffers will leave Japan as early as tomorrow to relieve a team in Leogane city, 40 kilometers west of Port-au-Prince, Hirano said. Japan will also triple the number of logistics personnel to 30, the defense ministry said.

‘Severely Damaged’

International Committee of the Red Cross staffers reached Leogane for the first time. The town was “severely damaged” and its people are in urgent need of assistance, Philippe David, the ICRC’s health coordinator in Haiti, said in a statement.

An ICRC-chartered airplane carrying 36 metric tons of water and sanitation equipment as well as medical items left Geneva yesterday for the Dominican Republic. From there, the cargo will move overland to Port-au-Prince.

A second plane carrying 2,500 family kits, containing essential items such as blankets, kitchen sets and plastic sheeting for temporary shelter, is due to leave Panama for the Dominican Republic in the coming days.

A German television appeal for funds to help victims of the earthquake that aired last night has so far raised more than 20 million euros ($28 million), the newspaper Bild said in a faxed statement.

Siemens AG and Volkswagen AG were among companies that each pledged 1 million euros, according to Bild, which organized the appeal together with ZDF television.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Faries in Buenos Aires at

wfaries@bloomberg.net

[Alyeska]

I am very pleased to see how seriously the US military is taking this. They are escalating and sending more and more units over there. This can only help. Does it cost money? Yes. But when you get down to it, these are resources that would be spent no matter what. It makes for good training. More importantly, these soldiers are desperately needed in Haiti right now. I hope to see the soldiers expanding out of the capitol city and setting up relief points and distribution centers. On top of that order must be restored.