The Smell of Death.

I have relatives that experienced the bombing in Hiroshima and lost the entire family or friends. One of my uncles was playing hide and seek with friends and he hid himself in some sort of a locker or a storage space with cleaning equipments. He somehow survived because of the structure he was hiding and he considered it a miracle. He could not find his home, or his neighborhood and people he saw on streets were often adhered to the remnant of building scorched, melted, or if they have not been charred, their skin was hanging like cloths on a line of their skeleton. He never saw his parents or his siblings again. He has passed away now and I have no way of verifying the detail of the story but he spoke of the smell of death. That was his way of instilling the motivation in us to keep peace on earth.

My sense of smell was the first to be on its end at the news of the recent destruction in Haiti. When I traveled years ago with a group of medical professionals to Haiti, my sense of smell needed adjustment the most out of all of me. I struggled against the wave of nausea in the car during the three hour trip from Port au prince to the village where we were to stay for almost three months. It was partly because of the unending curves on the road but partially due to the general environmental odor. Riding through the city of Port au prince with trash and garbage piled everywhere gave off a whim like no other. Many lived right on the pile. I saw children and adults searching for anything useful at the pile and they were often sitting and eating right there. The driver who picked us up said, "many live right there". Human waste and food all coexisted in the same cubic square. But there was no pile of bodies.

With the humidity and heat in the air, the perished left in the concrete rubble and the torn flesh caught in the fragmented structure must make its presence known to poignantly declare death. One would wonder where God is and where mercy is. It is incomprehensible to our human logic just how a disaster of this magnitude affect the future of this nation as a whole let alone the impact on fragile human mind and soul.

Hiroshima claimed the lives of estimated 90,000-166,000 out of the city population of 350,000 according to Radiation Effects Research Foundation (http://www.rerf.jp/general/qa_e/qa1.html). Nagasaki lost 60,000-80,000 people out of of 270,000 population. Some of the first hand stories I heard from my relatives came back to my mind as I read, saw, and heard the accounts of Haiti's disaster. As I look at the modern city of Hiroshima today, it is impossible to believe that the city lost so much in terms of infrastructure and human resources.

Authority of the Haitian government struggles with the definite issue of chaos and simple lack or ability to organize the relief effort. It is a situation that puts the entire authority and its power vulnerable. My prayer is that the authority would put the welfare of the people a priority now during this period of recovery instead of making an effort to maintain their power above the international humanitarian efforts.

Japan lost the war and it worked to an advantage in terms of relief and recovery effort. Japanese authority had no choice but to let GHQ led by General Mc Arthur to be in power so to speak to reorganize and rebuild. One report of the US led effort of public health innovation indicates the advantage of having one strong leader to lead and organize.

UNICEF, WHO, UN are all powerful organizations. Wonder if anyone has thought about what I thought about in terms of streamlining the authority line but I bet Haitian authority would refuse the outside imposition of power. May God give the leaders wisdom for those hurting people in Haiti who wake up to the smell of death.