The Tragedy of Haiti

(CBS)  Five days after the earthquake in Haiti, the enormity of the bare numbers seems too much to comprehend. Some 140,000 lie dead -- tens of thousands of bodies are still entombed beneath the rubble. And an ever-dwindling handful of survivors lie with them, trapped alive, awaiting either rescue or death.

In Port-Au-Prince, 300,000 citizens have no home but the streets. More than three-and-a-half million Haitians, according to the Red Cross, find their lives turned inside out by the quake and its aftermath.

Complete Coverage: Devastation in Haiti
Haiti Quake: How You can Help
Web Extra: Makeshift Morgue
Web Extra: City of Ruins
Web Extra: With the 82nd Airborne
Web Extra: Triage
Web Extra: Homecoming

This weekend, help is flowing into Haiti; the trickle has become a stream. Hundreds of thousands of meals have been distributed. Three U.S. government water purification systems are up and running. And by Monday morning some 12,000 American troops will be on station, organizing and distributing relief.

But the tragedy of Haiti and the scope of the response are not something that can be totaled in numbers. They are, as our Byron Pitts has discovered, best understood through the eyes of the people who have come to offer help. Much of what they're seeing is difficult to watch, but this is the reality of Haiti.



Full segment:


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Web Extra: Makeshift Morgue


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Web Extra: City of Ruins


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Web Extra: With the 82nd Airborne


Watch CBS News Videos Online


Web Extra: Triage


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Web Extra: Homecoming


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Produced by Harry Radliffe, Jenny Dubin and Magalie Laguerre Wilkinson

[roxydog5555]

What Haiti really needs is birth control. Until you get control of the population growth, you will never have enough money to get people out of poverty and into jobs and adequate homes. You also need a government who cares about it's people.

[Marie Zarankevich]

Thank you, CBS, and 60 Minutes, for giving us the most concise, revealing, and human look at what's happening in Haiti. The work of your reporters is just phenomenal, and is much appreciated. You have some brave souls working for you! Thank you, again.

[revlin1]

YUP, IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS. THERE GOES 60 MINUTES AND EVERY OTHER JOURNALIST/CAMERAMAN/WOMAN/VIDEOGRAPHER, ETC....ALL OF THEM TAKING UP SPACE, WATER, FOOD AND OTHER ESSENTIALS TO DO THEIR THING IN THE MIDST OF A TRAGEDY BOTH OF HUMANITY AND OF A NATION BROKEN TO ITS KNEES. SHAME ON WESTERN JOURNALISTS...

[cynic3]

Well, well nothing like the nuts and fruits to come out an reiterate the idiotic statements Pat Robertson made, that have made him the laughingstock of the world.

[revlin1]

B. ?Swore a pact with the Devil... we will serve you if we are freed from
the French.? Pat Robertson
1. The Truth ? ?Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan. Demon spirits have been consulted for political decisions and have shaped the country?s history says, reverend Doug Anderson, who grew up in Haiti with missionary parents, and served in Haiti as a missionary until 1990.
Page 3
The leaders of Haiti make no attempt to hide their allegiance to Satan. The Haiti government is a government of the devil, by the devil and for the devil. It is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago.
On August 14, 1791, a group of voodoo priest, led by a slave voodoo priest named Boukman, made a pact with the Devil at a place called Bois-Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all of the white Frenchmen on the island. They sacrificed a black pig in a voodoo ritual at which hundreds of slaves drank the pigs blood. In this ritual, Boukman asked Satan for his help in liberating Haiti from the French. In exchange, the voodoo priests offered to give the country of Haiti to Satan for 200 years and swore to serve him.
At the time of the pact Haiti was France?s richest colony, and was known as the Pearl of the Antilles for its singular beauty. But it soon became one of the world?s poorest and most benighted nations. Scoffers may say that there is no connection between the fact that Haiti was the richest nation I the hemisphere, and then became the poorest after selling its national soul to Satan. But the Scoffers can?t come up with a better explanation.
C. Tony Campolo ? Evangelical, Professor of Sociology at Eastern University...? Haiti?s former dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, was a voodoo witchdoctor, and when he was driven from power it was widely rumored that he offered an infant boy as a blood sacrifice to Satan, and cursed the country with an evil spell to bring disasters and suffering upon the Haitian people. Tony Campolo says... ?You may not believe in that sort of thing, but many Haitians do. Now we must show them that God?s love, expressed through sacrificial people, is greater than the forces of darkness.?
D. People and the media forget that Pat Robertson continued to say...
E. ?They need to have and we need to pray that they have a great ........turning to God!? Pat Robertson
F Now... that?s the TRUTH... JESUS IS THE TRUTH!
G. CNN Headline News... ?Haiti... 80 % Catholic, 15% Protestant and a
100% Voodoo.
H. Voodoo... a practice based on a mixture of African spiritism and
witchcraft.