On 12 January 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck Haiti about 10 miles south-west of the capital Port-au-Prince. Over 200,000 people are believed to have been killed.
Within an hour of first reports of the earthquake, Crown Agents' CHASE Operations Team* was supporting DFID's humanitarian response and working to help co-ordinate relief efforts. A four-person field assessment team was dispatched to Port-au-Prince in order to determine the priorities for urgent assistance.
Around 48 hours after the earthquake struck, members of the UK's 64-strong search and rescue team were out looking for survivors in Port-au-Prince's collapsed streets. They were quickly followed by others, operating in six teams, from across the UK's Fire and Rescue Service.
The assessment team worked on the ground with the UN, US and others to support DFID with programming advice for the UK government's emergency assistance for food, shelter, basic sanitation and health services, including programming funds for:
- the Haitian Red Cross to provide food, shelter, clean water and other immediate needs for 20,000 families;
- the World Food Programme for transport, communications and base camps to help with the logistics of getting relief where it's needed;
- the World Health Organisation for disease surveillance, to help prevent the spread of epidemics such as malaria and dengue fever; and
- to help the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs bring in more than 30 extra staff to help bolster humanitarian coordination.
* Crown Agents is exclusively contracted by DFID's Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department to provide a 24/7 emergency humanitarian response.