Informative Essay On Haiti Earthquake

January 12th, 2010 is an unforgettable day for most. It was a day in which many lives were either lost, ruined, or in rare cases, changed for the better, resulting in an even more positive outlook on life amid the devastation. One of these rare cases includes the life of Helly Florian, a young survivor of the infamous earthquake of Haiti back in 2010. She has not forgotten, and will never forget, her interaction with a rather deadly and calamitous adversary of nature. One of the most devastating natural disasters known to man, the “earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck Haiti, killing more than 160,000 and displacing close to 1.5 million people” (Laurent). These are statistics that none would ever even imagine possible, let alone to a country that was not paid much attention to. Nothing more was expected of 11-year-old Helly Florian than to do well in school. “I was getting ready to take the state exam for sixth graders,” Helly stated. Normal, everyday activity for Helly blended in with the happenings of the rest of the country of Haiti. Then all at once, the demeanor of all of Haiti
changed with the seemingly simple sliding of rocks within the Earth. Helly clearly remembers the instance in which everything changed for her. She recalled that “when the earthquake hit [she] got up from [her] nap” and didn’t know what was going on. All she noticed at that moment was that her mother and sister “fell on the floor trying to reach [her] room.” The family she had in her house at the time was unable to contact the rest of its members, because the force of the earthquake disconnected the phones. In addition to the existing chaos, “Some of [her] neighbors’ houses fell down with people in there and no one had any idea how to get them out.” At the same time, it appeared as though all the uproar occurring around Helly was the least of Haiti’s issues. It was reported that “a wall at the front of the Hotel Oloffson had fallen, killing a passer-by. A number of nearby buildings had crumbled, trapping people (Romero and Lacey). Many died, and the families of the victims couldn’t properly hold a memorial and bury their loved ones due to the fact that funeral homes were always in use.
Amid the surrounding turmoil, there was a light at the end of that very dark tunnel for both Helly and many others.While it may have looked as if the world was coming to an end, this earthquake was a learning experience for the people of Haiti.
Helly brought up her observation – “half of the people there didn’t know each other, but [they] all helped each other as much as [they] could,” proving to Helly that “people can put aside their differences and come together as one.” This experience also prompted Helly to realize that helping people is what she wants to do in life, leading her to choose surgery as her career path. A lot of terrifying things happened in Haiti on that day that will go down in history, but we can’t benefit from looking at the bad in the situation. We should all let experiences like this one shape us as human beings, and we should allow them to help us
learn.