Deseret News in Haiti: Aftershock rattles medical volunteers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More aftershocks rumbled through Port-au-Prince Thursday, rattling an already spooked population of survivors and damaging the hospital where members of the LDS Church's medical team were working.

The two minor tremors were shorter and considerably smaller in magnitude than Wednesday morning's 5.9 quake that shook the capital city area for nearly 20 seconds.

Several members of the LDS Church's team of volunteer doctors and nurses were assisting in surgeries and treatments at the Sacred Heart Central Hospital, near the church's Centrale Ward chapel, when one tremor hit.

The quake sent patients, medical staff and a reporter and photographer running in a panic as they rushed to exit the five-story hospital as concrete and metal shook and glass and plastic panels rattled.

A number of cracks in the hospital's main interior walls were visible afterward, and there was talk of first moving all operations and surgeries from the interior rooms and hallways outside into a large, open courtyard that was already filled with tents housing post-operative patients and less-injured individuals seeking early, limited treatment.

Thursday afternoon, all the LDS volunteer medical personnel assisting at Sacred Heart left the hospital to return to the group's headquarters clinic at the Centrale chapel, concerned about working in an unstable environment.

Later Thursday, there was talk that the hospital was going to shut down because of the aftershock damage.

e-mail: taylor@desnews.com