Donald M. Payne: “Madam Speaker, I rise to extend my deepest condolences to the people of Haiti, Haitian Americans, and all of those who…”

“Madam Speaker, I rise to extend my deepest condolences to the people of Haiti, Haitian Americans, and all of those who have been affected by the earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, January 12. Words certainly cannot describe the pain and psychological trauma of the tragedy and its cause, and there is no way that we can just envision the tragic loss of life from this devastating 7.0 Richter scale earthquake. The other thing about the earthquake is that it was only 6 miles below the surface, which many earthquakes go as far as 100, 150 miles down. So the trauma of this earthquake was just totally devastating. Actually, we have had several aftershocks, a 5.9 and a 5.5. We had another one today of 6.1 on the Richter scale. So this is far from over. It has been estimated that over 3 million people have been directly affected by the disaster in Haiti. Nearly one-third of the country's population is at risk for long-term displacement and vulnerability, not to forget the unknown numbers of individuals who remain trapped in collapsed buildings.”