Searching among a Haiti cathedral’s ruins – The collapse of Notre Dame Cathedral in Port-au-Prince struck at the heart of a religiously fervent people.
Heartbreaking
Reporting from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti – The woman wailed outside the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, the iconic Roman Catholic church that symbolized Haiti’s religious fervor.
“This is what God did!” she cried Friday morning. “See what God can do!”
Tuesday’s earthquake brought down the roof of the enormous pink-and-cream church, filling the apse and nave with tons of rubble. The quake punched out its vivid stained glass windows, twisted its wrought-iron fencing and sliced brick walls like cake. The western steeple, which had soared more than 100 feet, toppled onto parishioners praying at an outdoor shrine to St. Emmanuel. Flies buzzed around the pile of copper, plaster and felled columns.
The senior Catholic figure in the country, Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, was killed in the magnitude 7.0 earthquake. As many as 100 priests were still missing, sacristan Jean Claude Augustin said.
By the cathedral’s ruins lay a small blue copy of the New Testament. Sheet music for Christian hymns was scattered through the street.
Tags: News
January 17th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
This is truly tragic.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:01 am
Notre Dame (Our Lady) was build in 1750 and withstood many natural disasters. Let’s pray the church will be rebuilt as a symbol of recovery and hope.