The Miracle Baby

Nine years ago, an earthquake in Haiti caused carnage unlike anything the world had seen since the Second World War. This is the story of one child’s astonishing survival—and my journey to the heart of a country.

- Catherine Porter

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON of January 12, 2010, an earthquake struck Haiti near the town of Léogâne, 25 kilometres outside the country’s already destitute capital, Portau-Prince. As many as 300,000 people were killed, another 300,000 injured and 1.5 million made homeless. The carnage was caused not just by the earthquake, which was 7.0 on the Richter scale, but also by decades of neglect and poverty.

Haiti was then—and remains—the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a place where one-third of children were malnourished and half never attended school. People had built concrete homes in the capital’s valleys and hillsides with cheap material and no oversight. Now those buildings killed them.

An hour after the initial undulating tremor, night fell over the country like a blackout blind, and locals relied on the lights from their cellphones while desperately clawing by hand through the rubble for their loved ones.

International help flew into the Dominican Republic, on the other side of the island, and then drove across the border. What started as a trickle became a flood, and Haiti soon became the recipient of an enormous international aid effort—something that would in time reveal itself to be a mixed blessing. But in those first fragile days after the earthquake, hundreds of people were dug out from the wreckage, to the cheers of rescue crews. Each one was considered sacred.

Six days after the earthquake, a twoyear-old girl was hauled out from under a shattered home. She would become sacred to me.

IT FELT LIKE THE PLANE was landing in the middle of the ocean.

Peering out a window, I could see nothing but vast blackness. There were no white lights dotting the edges of the runway, no brightly lit buildings in the distance. Just blackness, then a bump: we were on the ground.