JANUARY 24, 2010

I have worked for The Times for nearly twenty-five years. No assignment comes close to what I witnessed in Haiti. The utter devastation and terrible loss of life is on a scale that I couldn’t begin to imagine. Thousands of mangled corpses in the rubble, apocalyptic streets and crushed vehicles. Death everywhere you turned. The smell seemed to have life of its own that occupies your nostrils and won’t let go.

The Claude family back at their house with Redjison in Port au Prince. Spanish rescuers saved two-year-old Redjison from his home after it collapsed. Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

To say it was emotionally stressful would be an understatement; the sheer effort of working in such a shattered city also took its toll.

A Hatian journalist at hotel Villa Creole Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

Finding a driver, translator, fuel, food, water, no washing for over a week (God bless deodorant spray), living on the roof of partially collapsed hotel, one internet cable between an army of writers and photographers were but a few of the obstacles.

Journalists working at the partially collapsed hotel Villa Creole Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

Finding the stories, getting to the stories through paralysed traffic, shooting the scenes of carnage and filing the pictures back to London was a daily nightmare, but nothing to what the people of Haiti are enduring.

The hotel Villa Creole, in the aftermathe of the Haiti earthquake in Port au Prince Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

I will leave Haiti with memories that will always stay with me. The young boy wrapped in a blanket and left by a car in the city hospital grounds, whom for a moment I thought was still alive. Marie Doval who had her gangrenous right leg amputated at Saint Damien Children’s Hospital. The exhausted rescue workers from the Spanish rescue team who tried to save 40 students in a school but found them all dead.

Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

Above all, though, I will remember how the Haitian people survived the worst catastrophe of their lives with their spirit unbroken – a spirit symbolized by the smiling face of two-year-old Redjison Claude who was miraculously saved from the rubble of his home three days after the quake.

Kitchen staff cooking in the hotel Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)

A special tribute to the Villa Creole who did what they could to make things as comfortable as possible, Clarke our driver, police officer and voodoo band member but most of all a very special thank you to The Times writers Giles Whittall, Tim Reid and Martin Fletcher who I would go anywhere with.

Chris Harris from Haiti.

Me with the Claude family. Father and mother, Reginald and Plaisir Claude with two year-old Redjison. Click image to enlarge (Chris Harris/The Times)