Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The Spanish civil protection service chose two members of the Barcelona Fire Service to travel to Haiti with 12 other firefighters from six European countries. The two are technical architects, experts in the field of construction and intervention in collapsed infrastructures.

The goal of the expedition is to help with the recovery operation in the Caribbean country, ravaged by the huge earthquake there on 14 August which has left nearly 2,000 dead. The two firefighters were chosen as they are technical engineers and instructors in the field of construction and intervention in collapsed infrastructures.

The firefighters flew to Port-au-Prince, with a scheduled stop in Santo Domingo. Access to the emergency area in the south-west of the island was by boat as roads in Haiti have been heavily damaged.

Coordinated by the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre, the mission is set to last two weeks.

Critical humanitarian situation

Due to the difficulties resulting from the catastrophe, which make travel around the country more complicated and pose a risk to the safety of teams on the ground, the European mission has had to adapt to the situation and modify its initial plan. Pau and David are in Les Cayes, a city to the south of the earthquake epicentre, in the area with the most recorded deaths and injuries.

The humanitarian situation is critical: the population of Haiti are having difficulty accessing food and water, while sanitary conditions cannot be guaranteed. In addition, the hurricane season is about to start.

The population also faces a housing emergency, with structural damage to homes meaning that large numbers of people cannot return to their homes and are either sleeping rough or in buildings which sustained less damage.

Pau and David are working with a team of British and Swiss technical architects to assess the structural condition of buildings of general interest, such as hospitals and schools. A coordination centre has also been set up with local people so that the operation is carried out in a uniform way in all the affected areas.

The European team on the ground is engaged in other tasks, such as locating a space to install a water treatment plan, given by the French civil protection service, and the establishment of two high-capacity field hospitals, given by Italy and Sweden.

The final goal of the European mission is to obtain accurate data and technical advice on which aid measures can be applied, and assess the financial, human and material resource needs in the short to medium term.