A massive earthquake of magnitude 7.0, devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, reducing much of the capital Port-au-Prince to rubble. The death toll is expected to reach tens of thousands, while badly injured survivors roam the streets in search of much-needed help.

According to official estimates, 222,570 people killed, 300,000 injured, 1.3 million displaced, 97,294 houses destroyed and 188,383 damaged.

Appeals for humanitarian aid were issued by the government of Haiti and many aid organizations. The humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake included national governments, charitable and for-profit organizations from around the world which began coordinating humanitarian aid designed to help the Haitian people

Figure: Earthquake aftermath in Haiti
[Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake]

Progress in responding to an almost unprecedented scale of disaster has been hampered by numerous factors, including major loss of life, multiple large aftershocks, devastated civil infrastructure, collapsed buildings blocking streets, the lack of electricity for gasoline station pumps, plus the loss of the capital's seaport and air traffic control facilities. Additionally, the significant damage to the Haitian government ministries, all of which suffered varying degrees of destruction and personnel deaths, further impeded coordination of the disaster response.