'It's chaos, I'm telling you -- it's real chaos'

On Tuesday, January 12 at 4:53 PM Haiti time (2153 UTC), a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, the island nation's capital.

Communications in and out of Haiti have been disrupted. The ARRL encourages US amateurs to be aware of the emergency operations on the following frequencies:

7.045 and 3.720 MHz (IARU Region 2 nets), 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz (SATERN nets), and 14.300 MHz (Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net); the International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active on EchoLink node 278173.

There was no firm estimate on how many people were killed
by Tuesday's quake. Haitian President Rene Preval said the toll could be in the thousands: "Let's say that it's too early to give a number."

On Wednesday afternoon, Fred Moore, W3ZU, assisted Jean-Robert Gaillard, HH2JR, with a phone patch to his friend Ariel in Miami.

"It's bad, it literally is bad," Gaillard told Ariel. "We don't know how many people are dead. We do not know what to expect. It's chaos, I'm telling you -- it's real chaos. We are really in a disaster area. It's really a war zone.

"Many, many buildings in the downtown area are stripped from the ground with many people buried underneath them - you name it, it's bad."

Gaillard, who lives in Port-au-Prince, was using his neighbor's generator to make the contact. "It's really chaotic. I've never been in a war, but this is what a war zone would be like. Dead bodies all over the place, dead bodies buried. All I can tell you is that I'm okay, my house is okay. We've had 30 aftershocks, the main one yesterday. We are expecting some more shocks, so I'm a bit nervous to be inside the house."

"The scope of the disaster clearly shows that the response to this is going to be a long term effort," said ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP.

"The ARRL has been in contact with communications leaders of the American Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as other key Amateur Radio operators throughout the region. As teams from the hundreds of responding agencies worldwide are formed for deployment, many will have Amateur Radio components. ARRL is committed to providing communications aid to our served agencies and working with the international community in this time of crisis.

At this time there are no known requests from agencies for amateurs to travel to Haiti, but this can change.
If it develops that there are ARES?? assignments for a deployment in Haiti, these will be vetted and processed through each Section's Section Emergency Coordinators."

Read more here http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2010/01/14/11290/?nc=1.

The American Radio Relay League