Peter Ivermee is home from Haiti horror (From Thisisdorset)

Peter Ivermee is home from Haiti horror

8:00am Monday 15th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

“THERE was just devastation and desperation whichever way you looked.”

Christchurch man Peter Ivermee has just returned from the stricken country of Haiti following the massive earthquake that hit the country on January 12.

Flying out three weeks after the disaster, Peter, who along with his wife Eileen organise the Christmas Shoebox Project, Operation Christmas Child, touched down to find himself surrounded by rubble and stricken survivors.

Making the trip with a team of people from Samaritan’s Purse, Peter was based in Titayen, north of Port au Prince and tasked with getting supplies including food, tarpaulin, wood and other necessities through to people and places in most need.

He said: “If 1,000 bombs had been dropped upon the city of Port au Prince it wouldn’t have been half as destroyed.

“There are no roads, there is nothing.

“Speaking to other relief workers, they said this is the worst situation they have ever seen.

“People are desperate. If you talk to them it is very rare to find someone who has not lost a loved one and in the end you stop asking and start assuming.

“One man I was talking to had lost his mother, sister and niece as well as his house.

“The main worry now is that it is the rainy season and the threat of typhoid and cholera becomes incredibly real. It’s going to get a lot worse out there before it gets better.

He added: “The locals get hysterical about the aftershocks, fearing they are a return of the original quake.”

Peter said many still refuse to sleep inside instead bedding down in makeshift shelters constructed from twigs and tarpaulin, with those in need of hospital treatment opting to be treated outside rather than venture inside a building.

“One moment, which particularly stuck in my mind, was when a little girl reached up and took my hand and just looked at me.

“I gave her a bottle of water and she was just so grateful to have a whole bottle to herself she didn’t have to share.

“It will take years to rebuild this country.

“And it needs to be rebuilt properly this time for the people of Haiti’s sake.”