Aftershock

Caregivers predict a second wave of death, as Haitians find moments of deliverance amid days of devastation from one of the modern world's worst natural disasters | Jamie Dean

Associated Press/Photo by Gerald Herbert

PORT-AU-PRINCE—Myerline Guillaume was preparing to walk to an evening worship service when she felt the earth move in her two-story home in Port-au-Prince. When she looked up, the sight was horrifying: "The ceiling was coming down on me."

Three hours later, neighbors plucked Guillaume from the rubble in the dark. Her leg was crushed, and so was her spirit: Of 29 family members living in the house, 16 were at home when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck on Jan. 12. Nine were dead, including three sisters.

Twelve days later, in Job-like fashion, Guillaume was preparing to worship again. On a thin mattress over concrete in the makeshift clinic of a small church in the nearby town of Cabaret, Guillaume tended to what was left of her amputated leg and her family. Surrounded by her three young children—all suffering from severe leg breaks or open wounds—she clutched a tattered New Testament in her thin hand. Waiting for a morning worship service to begin just outside, she explained: "It's the only thing that brings me comfort."