HAITI AGAIN...

“The keenest sorrow is to recognise ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.” – Sophocles

The devastation left behind the earthquake in Haiti is something that is tragic and extremely upsetting. The horror of the situation there is unimaginable and I feel quite powerless to help. I wish there were something more substantial I could do than handing over my donation.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies. We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters.

Some 40,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, Secretary of State for Public Safety Aramick Louis said. If the casualty figures turn out to be accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

Three days after it struck, gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors living in makeshift camps on sidewalks and streets strewn with rubble and decomposing bodies, as quake aftershocks rippled through the hilly neighbourhoods.

These three extracts from the news point out the enormity of the disaster and the vile side of human nature that inevitably shows up following any such disaster. Not only do survivors have to cope with the shocking desolation, but they also have to fend themselves against the monsters intent on looting, robbery and murder. As if the ruination wrought by nature were not enough, some devils under the guise of human beings complete the destruction…

I can only turn to Bach for comment on this tragedy.



Andor Foldes plays Bach's Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue in D minor.