They dig through the rubble looking for corpses.
Some wear socks on their hands and rags over their
faces as they tug decaying bodies from shattered buildings. Others wrap
their fingers in plastic bags.
Seventeen days after a massive earthquake turned much of
into rubble, most of the international rescue teams have packed up and
gone home. Roughly 200,000 people are feared dead, and the stench of
the city suggests many are still entombed beneath the concrete.
home to the quake. A few days later, with two siblings to support, he
was hiring himself out for the equivalent of
What is unimaginable for most people has become commonplace for him.
He smokes to mask the stench . Asked if dealing with
corpses disturbs him, he nods toward the red motorcycle gloves he’s
wearing.
“It’s difficult work but I have these,” he said, as if a few inches of leather make his job routine.
Unemployment in the hemisphere’s poorest nation already was rampant before the earthquake, thought to be as high as 70 percent.
The
While
government are promoting cash-for-work programs that have armies of men
cleaning rubble off the street, there is no organized effort to recover
bodies still buried in buildings, as has been the case at many other
quakes.
“In
earthquake toppled the six-story house where he had lived with his
extended family for more than 40 years.
“In one minute you lose the ones you love,
everything you had and everything you worked so hard for,” he said, as
he sat in the shade across the street.
He, too, was trapped in the rubble for about 30 minutes, before two of his brothers freed him.
A few days after the earthquake, a team of Belgian,
Spanish and Russian rescue workers told him there was no hope for his
family. That same day, through a friend, he hired the group of 10 men
to recover the bodies.
That first day they found a 5-year-old nephew and his friend, both alive.
Since then, there has only been bad news, Lochard said.
The group has recovered the bodies of his mother,
his brother, two nephews and three nieces. The only family member
missing is Giovani, his 4-year-old nephew.
Friday morning, the work crew said they spotted the shapes of a woman and a man through cracks in the concrete.
Lochard thinks the woman may be his secretary,
Judith. She worked in his law office, which was attached to the home.
He has no idea who the man is.
Behind the rubble, in what used to be the home’s
patio, Lochard points to a fresh mound of dirt where Giovani’s mother
is buried. When the boy’s body is recovered, he will share her grave
“so they can be together,” he said.
As the body hunters continued to chip away at the
slabs of concrete and twisted metal, Lochard’s voice broke as he talked
about their work.
“We will always be grateful to them all our life,” he said of the men. “They are brave people.”
When Giovani is found, Lochard will hold a ceremony
for all of his dead relatives. He’s confident that the searchers will
help bring closure in a day or two.
The funeral is scheduled for Monday.
—
(c) 2010, The Miami Herald.
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