Magnitude of Destruction

"...some said 220,000 dead; others more and others less. By late March (2010), we knew that a third of Haiti's population had been affected directly, and this meant that most Haitians would be affected as the displaced sought safer places to live. An estimated 25,000 nonresidential buildings had collapsed and, even worse, some 225,000 or more homes. Some reports claimed that close to 40 percent of all federal employees were injured or killed and 28 out of 29 government ministries leveled. Again, the numbers were all over the map. Another assessment noted that about half of all public-sector health facilities in Port-au-Prince collapsed or were deemed unsafe; some 14 percent of Ministry of Health employees died, and two-thirds lost their homes. And injured was not the same as killed..."

Paul Farmer in Haiti: After the Earthquake, p. 119