On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. The ICT4Peace Foundation presents the following resources as those that contain, or in turn point to, resources including datasets, emergency numbers, helplines and updates, vital to aid efforts.

 

Begun as a group email and migrated to this wiki on 13 January 2010, this is a curated list compiled and maintained by Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor, ICT4Peace Foundation. A podcast featuring Sanjana's views on the use of technology in aid efforts in Haiti by UN OCHA's IRIN news service can be downloaded as a MP3 here. 

 

In April 2010, the Foundation published Haiti and Beyond: Getting it Right in Crisis Information Management, which is now on this wiki along with the feedback we received. 

 

From the New York Times, 23 January 2010: The United Nations says Haiti's government has declared the search and rescue phase for survivors of the earthquake over. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says 132 people were pulled from the rubble alive by international search and rescue teams.

 

Information from the ground / Haiti

 

Master Contact List UN OCHA published a master contact list on 23 January 2010 for Haiti. It is available for download from the OCHA OneResponse website here. For greater efficiency and effectiveness, the Foundation migrated the information contained in the original Excel spreadsheet online, Primary Contacts in Haiti Cluster Leads IM Focal Points OSOCC - MINUSTAH Base / OCHA - UNDAC team list

 

 Background information on Haiti

1. The UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library has developed a new page with links to information on Haiti. For many years, the UN system has produced reports, statistics and other resources about Haiti. This page provides access to many of these resources in English and French. This page will remain online until 30th April 2010.
2. How the United States and the United Nations Are Cooperating in Haiti: Statement of Principles on Field coordination between the United Nations in Haiti and the United States Government in the Haitian earthquake response effort

 

Government of Haiti 

1. Centre d'information du Gouvernement Haitien (site only in French)

 

Aid information, accountability and transparency

 

1. Haiti Reconstruction Platform (HRP) 
2. Haiti Aid Map by Interaction 
3. Aid inflows to Haiti pre-earthquake, from AidData 

 

Twitter feeds with vital links to information on Haiti

1. Hope for Haiti now: Resources Twitter itself has researched to help learn about what’s happening in and around Haiti as well as simple and effective methods to donate directly to the cause.
2. http://twitter.com/cnnbrk/haiti (from CNN / requires manual refresh)
3. http://spy.appspot.com/find/%23haiti?latest=100 (aggregation from a number of sites / works best on Firefox / automatic refresh)
4. Twitter lists: @NYTimes/haiti-earthquake; @BreakingNews/haiti-quake; @nprnews/haiti-earthquake;
5. Alertnet Haiti Earthquake Live blog (now archived, with text, audio, photos and video)
6. Haitian writer Richard Morse’s hourly accounts of earthquake through Twitter as reported by The Guardian
7. CrisisMappers Twitter feed

 

Citizen media (including on the ground reporting and updates)

1. Haiti earthquake and citizen media response
2. In Haiti earthquake coverage, social media gives victim a voice, by The Guardian, looks at social media use especially by CNN in its coverage of the Haiti earthquake
3. Google’s own social media search, which is updated every second automatically)
4. CrisisCommons Feed, with keyword 'Haiti'
5. Haiti Earthquake Data Portal news aggregator

 

Wikipedia

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake (refresh often for more updates and edits)

 

Facebook groups

1. Haitian Earthquake Relief
2. EARTHQUAKE HAITI 

 

News services and aggregation of stories

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8456322.stm (live updates from the BBC)
2. YouTube video updates (for videos from news services and citizen journalism)
3. Google News aggregation of news updates on earthquake (refresh for updates)
4. http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/haiti.quake/ (CNN special page to cover earthquake)
5. Al Jazeera blogs on Haiti
6. UNFree Media: Haiti, a news service operated by IFEX
7. Latest Updates on Rescue and Recovery in Haiti by 'The Lede' from The New York Times:
1. 12 & 13 January 2010
2. 14 January 2010
3. 15 January 2010
4. 16 January 2010
5. 17 January 2010
6. 18 January 2010 (includes YouTube video of UN SG Ban Ki Moon speaking in Haiti)
7. 19 January 2010
8. 20 January 2010
9. 21 January 2010
10. 22 January 2010

 

Post earthquake humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) aggregation sites 

1. http://trackernews.net/haiti
2. http://oneresponse.info/disasters/haiti/Pages/default.aspx
3. http://www.inrelief.org
4. http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/index.php?title=.php&title=Haiti/2010_Earthquake
5. http://www.esri.com/services/disaster-response/earthquakes/resources.html 
6. http://hypercube.telascience.org/haiti

Local media websites (recommended by Google)

TNH, Le Nouvelliste, Radio Metropole Haiti, Radio Galaxie, Radio Ginen (website down)

 

Videos on the earthquake and its aftermath

1. A collection of videos on YouTube curated by Citizen Tube. The following video from British broadcaster Sky covers the telecoms / tech dimension to the tragedy, noting ironically that the world outside Haiti may know more about the earthquake than many Haitians in the country. 

 

 

UN + Reliefweb

1. Contact list of organisations and persons on the ground in Haiti (published by OCHA on 18 January 2010)
2. Contact list for Cluster Leads in Haiti (mainly those base in Port au Prince, published by OCHA, 19 January 2010)
3. http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/index.shtml (MINUSTAH page)
4. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/doc106?OpenForm&rc=2&cc=hti (Latest updates from Haiti / response times slow on account of traffic)
5. UN OCHA resources on Haiti earthquake
6. Briefing Kit for Haiti: Earthquake - Jan 2010, compiled 17 January 2010 from Reliefweb (~36Mb PDF) containing,
1. All Reliefweb updates on Haiti
2. All situation reports on Haiti 
3. All post-earthquake maps
7. UN Financial Tracking Service on HAITI Earthquakes January 2010 (list of flash appeals and total humanitarian funding pledged to Haiti)
8. The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January 2010, taking the lives of thousands of Haitians and over a hundred of our United Nations friends and colleagues, was the biggest single loss of life in the history of UN peacekeeping. Read the tributes to 101 peacekeepers and UN staff here.
9. Haiti Earthquake: Update from the UN on Recovery Efforts - 9 March 2010

 

Emergency Telecoms (IASC / WFP et al)

1. The following resources are catalogued on WFP's Humanitarian Emergency Platform section on the Haiti earthquake:
1. WFP ETC Sitrep #1 (14 Jan 2010)
2. WFP ETC Sitrep #2 (15 Jan 2010)
3. WFP ETC Sitrep #3 (17 Jan 2010)
4. WFP ETC Sitrep #4 (18 Jan 2010)
5. WFP ETC Sitrep #5 (19 Jan 2010)
6. WFP ETC Sitrep #6 (21 Jan 2010)
7. WFP ETC Sitrep #7 (22 Jan 2010)
8. WFP ETC Sitrep #8 (23 Jan 2010)
9. Minutes of ETC meetings 
2. Press release by Digicell, 17 January 2010, on the status of GSM network coverage and services in Port au Prince
3. International Amateur Radio Union
1. Haiti Earthquake - Please keep frequencies clear (Radio amateurs are requested to keep 7.045MHz and 3.720MHz clear for any emergency traffic resulting from the Earthquake which struck Haiti on 12th January 2010 in case any Haitian hams manage to get on the air, and in case of other related events in surrounding areas, including aftershocks.)
2. Update 1 - 13 January 2010
3. Update 2 - 15 January 2010
4. Update 3 - 15 January 2010
5. Update 4 - 17 January 2010
6. Update 5 - 21 January 2010
7. Final update
4. Connected to Ham radio is the The Btown Monitoring Post, which at the time of writing has a number of posts up on Haiti with what seems to be useful information for those interesting in and using this communications method. Information here is unverified. 
5. Why Haiti's Cellphone Networks Failed

 

UN OCHA Situation Reports

1. Haiti Earthquake - Humanitarian Operational Challenges
2. The following situation reports are from UN OCHA:
1. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #1 (12.1.2010)
2. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #2 (13.1.2010)
3. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #3 (14.1.2010)
4. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #4 (15.1.2010)
5. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #5 (16.1.2010)
6. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #6 (17.1.2010)
7. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #7 (18.1.2010)
8. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #8 (19.1.2010)
9. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #9 (20.1.2010)
10. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #10 (21.1.2010)
11. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #11 (22.1.2010)
12. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #12 (24.1.2010)
13. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #13 (25.1.2010)
14. Haiti: Earthquake Situation Report #14 (27.1.2010)
15. Haiti Situation Update (31 January 2010) A good overview of the situation on the ground, including those displaced.
16. Port au Prince Situation Update (4 February 2010) Including statistics of population migration out of PaP

 

Blog updates

Google blog search (refresh for updated blog posts, aggregated by Google)

 

Crisis Information Management ( Key actors and deployments)

1. http://haiti.ushahidi.com (Ushahidi implementation has vital information up)
2. http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod (Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal, which includes a list of NGOs on the ground)
3. http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:start (wiki to help set up Sahana in Haiti)
4. Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Emergency Information Service (EIS): The service allows survivors of Haiti's earthquake to receive critical information by text message directly to their phones, free of charge.
1. For vital contact details and more information on the Haiti deployment of EIS, click here.
5. Haiti Relief wiki by Google (indexes all their efforts to help with the Haiti earthquake)
6. UN OCHA OneResponse for Haiti (site rendering is very bad on anything other than Internet Explorer at the present time)
7. Communications for Disaster Affected Populations (CDAC) in Haiti: Fact and Contact Sheet

 

Situation reports by crisis information management actors

1. InSTEDD Situation Report 14 January 2010 (courtesy Ushahidi Situation Room. Direct download hereas Word doc.)
2. InSTEDD Situation Report 15 January 2010 (courtesy Ushahidi Situation Room. Direct download here as Word doc.)
3. European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) fact sheet on Haiti aid efforts (18 January 2010)
4. Tech Community Situation Report via Ushahidi Situation Room, 24 January 2010
5. Haiti SMS short-codes ecosystem, from InSTEDD

 

Crisis Information Management (Blogs and deployment information by key CiM actors)

1. http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake/ (Ushahidi’s efforts to respond to the earthquake)
2. Ushahidi Situation Room (linked to Ushahidi deployment in Haiti)
3. http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:start (wiki to help set up Sahana in Haiti)
4. Sahana Software Foundation Responds to Haiti Earthquake by Mark Prutsalis, President & CEO, Sahana Software Foundation

 

Missing persons registries

1. Haitian Earthquake Registry (a site to share information about people you know who are affected by the Earthquake in Haiti)
2. Family Links Network of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
3. Haiti Situation Tracking Form by Google (available in French and English. This is now replaced by entry / initiative below from Google.)
4. Person Finder by Google (updated with over 3,000 names at the time of writing)
5. Haiti Earthquake Support Center by The Extraordinaries uses crowdsourcing to tag, filter and match photos of victims and the aftermath of the earthquake.
6. Missing Persons Registry by The Globe and Mail, based in Canada. (It is unclear as to how information in this site integrates with information on the Google's Person Finder above)
7. With features and backend technology respectively updated and upgraded throughout January 2010, some very interesting and useful tools developed by University of California, Irvine for tracking missing persons and family members include:
1. Red Cross / ICRC Search Widget
2. Person Finder: Haiti Earthquake
3. Family Reunification for Haiti Earthquake

 

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

1. Haiti IDP Locations (as of 04 Feb 2010) from UN OCHA

 

DPKO Support for UN staff and families

1. DPKO Support Page for UN Staff in Haiti on Facebook
2. Twitter feed by DPKO on Haiti

 

Wikis and portals aggregating ground information and help

1. http://mobileactive.org/earthquake-haiti-how-you-can-help-and-learn-more (by MobileActive.org, well populated)
2. http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/haiti-earthquake-2010/ (by the hugely respected Global Voices, updated regularly)
3. US Department of State - Haiti Earthquake 2010 page
4. USAID page on Haiti earthquake (see Haiti Earthquake Fact Sheet #3, which has information on numbers dead, affected and aid pledged)

 

 Wikis for aggregating ground info and help

1. http://mobileactive.org/earthquake-haiti-how-you-can-help-and-learn-more (by MobileActive.org, well populated)
2. http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/haiti-earthquake-2010/ (by the hugely respected Global Voices, updated regularly) 
3. Communicating with Disaster Affected Populations - Described as a blog that provides a place to share information about any efforts to provide communication assistance to the people of Haiti after the devastating January 12 earthquake. Some useful sitreps in here on emergency telecoms.

 

Mapping data / Imagery (General)

1. http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Haiti/2010_Earthquake (set up by Crisis Commons. Does not render accurately on Safari on OS X.)
2. Data from daily UAV flights over Haiti
3. Humanitatian Operational Challenges as of 18 January 2010 (published by OCHA)
4. Infrastructure and Logistics Report, 20 January 2010, from Information Management and Mine Action Programs (iMMAP)
5. All OCHA maps on Haiti post-earthquake (RSS feed here)
6. Hospitals in Haiti as a KML file / layer (from the excellent initiative by Mark Prutsalis of Sahana). Also available as,
1. EDXL-HAVE: http://haiti. sahanafoundation .org/prod/hms/hospital.have
2. GeoRSS: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.georss
3. JSON: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.json
4. XML: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.xml
5. CSV: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.csv
6. GPX: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.gpx
7. XLS: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org/prod/hms/hospital.xls
7. CNN 360 degree views of Port au Prince after earthquake
8. Haiti Earthquake Data Portal: In response to the earthquake which struck Haiti on Jan 12th 2010, the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis launched this web portal to provide GIS datasets for relief and reconstruction efforts.
9. Haiti Resource Index - Imagery and Organisations, an individual effort by a person named Walter active on CrisisMappers Google Group.
10. UN Cartographic Section: Collection of maps on Haiti
11. UNOSAT: Collection of maps on Haiti
12. Updated imagery of Port-au-Prince from Google now available on Google Earth, 29 April 2010 

 

Mapping data / Imagery / GIS (emphasis on layers, KML downloads)

1. UN-SPIDER SpaceAid: Available Space-based Information for Haiti Earthquake, updated throughout the month of January. This is a plethora of valuable links to GIS and imagery data.
2. Google Maps with post-earthquake satellite imagery overlays
3. Google Earth KML file, also with post-earthquake satellite imagery overlays
4. UN Department of Field Support has released its base map data and PDF maps of Haiti, produced by MINUSTAH GIS and the UN Cartographic Section. Available via FTP from this link. (These are relatively small PDF files. Also available as shape files here and as KML files here.)
5. Wikiproject Haiti (has a good list of GIS datasets on Haiti)
6. Cloudmade maps on Haiti, including:
1. haiti.img.zip  (414.4K)
2. haiti.navit.bin.zip  (873.3K)
3. haiti.osm.administrative.bz2  (156.9K)
4. haiti.osm.bz2  (2.5M)
5. haiti.osm.coastline.bz2  (94.4K)
6. haiti.osm.highway.bz2  (1.3M)
7. haiti.poi.gpx.zip  (17.5K)
8. haiti.poi.tomtom.zip  (10.9K)
9. haiti.poly  (802b)
10. haiti.shapefiles.zip  (1.4M)
7. The UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) has produced a map identifying road and bridge obstacles in Port-au-Prince to support the international humanitarian relief effort in Haiti: Satellite-Identified IDP Concentrations, Road & Bridge Obstacles in Central Port-au-Prince, Haiti
8. Maps from Reliefweb on the crisis
9. A large collection of maps (as KMLs and shapefiles) related to earthquake on GeoCommons.com (some of these layers have been used in the Sahana Haiti deployment)
10. European Commission Joint Research Centre - Preliminary findings of a rapid damage assessment carried out by the JRC based on the analysis of very high resolution satellite imagery acquired before and after the disaster. (contains links to high-res satellite imagery as PDFs and press pack of before / after images)
11. US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Haiti Earthquake Crisis Relief - Public Site (some products on Haiti on this site only work in Internet Explorer. Lots of links on right hand side of page to useful geospatial and other information sources)
12. ArcGIS resources
1. USGS Shakemap from 7.0 Haiti Earthquake
2. Post-earthquake imagery of Haiti from GeoEye
3. Imagery for Haiti collected by GeoEye on January 13, 2010, after the major earthquake
4. Prelim damage assessment jan 13, based on GeoEye image analysis
5. Basemap data for Haiti from the United Nations Department of Field Support
13. DigiGlobe - Free access to Haiti Earthquake imagery request form (available as KML)
14. DigiGlobe - Sample image gallery from Haiti (with downloadable high res photos)
15. UNOSAT collection of imagery and latest maps (as PDFs). Note that the two links are to different sites.
16. Google Map Maker layers (includes information on Haiti)
17. Rapid Mapping Service Haiti maps (a number of high resolution downloads on general post-earthquake imagery. Also see here)
18. Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) maps on Haiti post-earthquake
19. ERDAS is hosting a Web Site and free Web Services for Haiti Imagery to support the response efforts:
1. Web client to see ERDAS imagery and data (requires very good broadband internet connection)
2. Direct links to information provided by ERDAS including
1. 1.  January 18th NOAA Aerial Imagery
2. January 17 Google Aerial Imagery
3. January 17 NOAA Aerial Imagery 
4. January 13 GeoEye Satellite Imagery provided to the public by Google 
5. MDA Federal Natural View for all of Haiti 
6. Painted Relief for all of Haiti 
20. Telascience Haiti Crisis Map
21. Maps from UN OCHA
1. Cluster situation map (5 February)

 

Mapping data / Imagery / GIS (very high resolution downloads)

1. Courtesy Lars Bromley at CrisisMappers Google Groups comes these links to extremely high resolution satellite imagery. Lars notes that WV-2 is the best quality and in color, WV-1 is good quality and black/white, and QB is slightly lower quality and in color. No usage restrictions. 
1. Available via FTP from: ftp.digitalglobe.com  
2. QuickBird: username: xferhaiti1| password: ja99TrUT 
3. Worldview-1:  username: xferhaiti2| password: 6hU9ruwu
4. Worldview-2: username: xferhaiti3| password: thUKeMu3 
2. Haiti Earthquake – Satellite Imagery downloads via Google (some of these files are over one gigabyte, so unfit for low bandwidth / high latency connections):
1. High resolution data from GeoEye and Ikonos, hosted on Google
2. High resolution data from Google
3. 15cm aerial imagery of Port au Prince from Google
4. Google Earth KML for Haiti post-earthquake incorporating imagery noted in #3.

 

Logistics and infrastructure

1. UN Logistics Cluster Haiti Earthquake Update webpage
1. Road condition and distances, updated 29 January 2010
2. Contact list for staff currently deployed in Haiti as of 26 January 2010
2. P-Codes for Haiti as Excel spreadsheet (original download link from Nigel Snoad on CrisisMappers Google Group)
3. Haiti PCODES OBSOLETE replaced by MapCenter: Haiti Departments and Communes with P-Codes (Gov of Haiti - CNIGS)
4. Medical facilities (as of 15th January, information unconfirmed since media reports suggest many were hit bad by earthquake and have been rendered useless.)
5. OCHA Map of Haiti Quake Epicenter
6. OCHA/UNDAC Haiti team contact information
7. WFP Humanitarian Emergency Platform Haiti Earthquake Forum (with links to emergency telecoms sitreps, also provided below)
8. European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) update, 15 January 2010, says the most urgent needs are search and rescue and first aid teams, of course, sanitation equipment, tents, water, food and logistics and the repair of the communication systems.
9. Who, What, Where directory by UN OCHA (it looks like this is pre-earthquake information, but maybe useful nevertheless)

 

Health and medical care

1. HaitiVOICES is a voluntary project administered by public health practitioners, physicians and humanitarian responders to facilitate the collection and dissemination of information pertinent to humanitarian response and logistics in Haiti from January 18th onwards.
2. Haiti Epidemic Advisory System (HEAS) Updated 2145 GMT, 28 JAN 2010. More vital updates from Haiti from,
1. Operational biosurveillance issues for the 2010 Haiti earthquake response effort blog
2. Operational biosurveillance issues for the 2010 Haiti earthquake response effort Twitter feed
3. Hesperian's dedicated site containing downloadable health information in Haitian Creole including a searchable glossary of medical terms in English, Creole, Spanish and French. 

 

Mobile device information services

1. Open Street Maps and Sat Imagery for Free iPhone App
2. Person Finder Mobile App for Android to assist in the Haiti earthquake recovery
3. English-Haitian Creole Medical Dictionary by Educa Vision, Inc.

 

Post earthquake photos from Haiti

1. Photo collection from Doctors Without Borders
2. Large photo collection from the Denver News (contains graphic content)
3. Port au Prince destruction by the New York Times (excellent visualisation of pre and post earthquake imagery)
4. International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) photo gallery
5. European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) photos and maps on Haiti
6. Over 5,000 photos and images of Haiti post-earthquake catalogued on Flickr mashup

 

Ways to help

The ICT4Peace Foundation is, unless specifically noted, not in any way associated with or part of the initiatives mentioned below. We cannot therefore vouch for their work, but have pointed to reliable sources such as Google who have first flagged the initiatives.

 

1. Google Crisis Response on Haiti lists a number of aid agencies that have set up helplines and ways to deliver aid.
2. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) from UN Foundation
3. The Lede by the New York Times on how to contribute to aid.
4. Aidwatch publishes the following ways to help:
1. Philanthropy Action Advice for Donors to Haiti
2. Chris Blattman suggests Haiti Partners
3. Tyler Cowen and many others recommend Paul Farmer’s organization, Partners in Health
4. GlobalGiving has a list of 20 organizations already working in Haiti and has set up a Relief Fund for Haiti Earthquake
5. Donate using Apple iTunes (only confirmed for those in the US)
6. Nobody wants your old shoes: How not to help in Haiti (a good article that looks at what one must NOT assume when setting out to help Haitians)
7. A Helping Hand for Haiti, by former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, published in The New York Times
8. Indie+Relief: On Wednesday, January 20, a group of over 140 Mac and iPhone developers will donate 100 percent of their software sales from the day to a charity of their choice through Indie+Relief. See write up of the initiative on Ars Technica here. 

 

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