David Meltzer, Chief International Officer of the American Red Cross, penned an article for the Huffington Post this week with vivid stories and important lessons from his many trips to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake.
Here’s a quick excerpt:
When news broke of the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal, I had just returned from my 20th trip to Haiti and was tragically reminded of what we faced in the early hours following the Haiti earthquake. Like Port au Prince in Haiti at the time of the 2010 earthquake, Kathmandu in Nepal is a city with many homes that are not earthquake-resistant and it is now confronted with the challenges of bringing relief supplies for hundreds of thousands of people into a city with one small airport and many impassable roads. The challenges are daunting even to the most experienced and hardened disaster relief worker. But as hard as it is to imagine that a country with this much devastation can ever recover, the example of Haiti, five years later, is instructive.
Head over to the Huffington Post to read the full piece, including Meltzer’s three lessons for relief and recovery in Nepal from our experience in Haiti.
Read more about how the American Red Cross is responding to the Nepal earthquake on redcross.org.