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Haiti earthquake
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- INTERACTIVE | Haiti earthquake: Two years later
- Q&A | Michaëlle Jean: 'You cannot build a sustainable economy on charity'
- Haiti's struggle to build better homes after quake
- POV | Are you satisfied with the government's response to the crisis in Haiti?
- Evaluating Haiti's 'fresh start' | David Common reports two years after the devastating quake
- Haiti quake camps still home to 500,000
- Haiti faces mix of problems 2 years after quake
- Haiti still recovering from deadly 2010 earthquake
- PHOTOS | Haiti since the earthquake
- Canadians in Haiti: Stories of loss and remembrance
- Michel Martelly | Deciphering Haiti's president-elect
- PROFILE | Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier
- Helping Haiti manage disaster
- TIMELINE | Haiti's recent history - From the Duvalier dictatorship to the return of 'Baby Doc'
- Donations to Haiti 1 year after quake
- Battling cholera in Haiti's frontier
- Paul Farmer: Rebuilding Haiti, but 'building back better'
- Rebuilding effort in Haiti 'at standstill'
- Haiti news archive (up to Jan. 18, 2011)
- PHOTOS | Six months later
- PHOTOS | Haiti's tent cities
Members of the Sauble Christian Fellowship were among those who arrived at the Montreal airport Monday morning. (CBC)Canadian survivors of last Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti continued to share their horrifying stories as they arrived at the Montreal airport, Monday.
Four more planeloads of evacuees arrived Friday morning, including a group from the Sauble Christian Fellowship in southern Ontario.
The group had been volunteering at an orphanage 10 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicenter.
"We saw things that no one should have to see — no one should have to go through," said Lori Thresh of Waterloo, Ont.
Following the quake, the group — including six nurses and an 82-year-old doctor, helped provide emergency care in the orphanage’s clinic, said Robin Spence of Caledonia, Ont..
"We saw a lot of different scenarios in the medical field that we were able to help with — even though we were not necessarily qualified," said Spence, an administrative assistant with basic first aid training.
"You run on adrenaline, you just do what you have to do," she said.
Among the more than 150 patients the group helped treat in one night was a woman who was forced to flee the local hospital while undergoing surgery for an infection after giving birth by cesarean section, Spence said.
"She had been open since the earthquake and we saw her two days after," Spence said. "We had to operate on her with our 82-year old doctor and just injectable freezing."
Spence marveled at the resilience of the Haitian people.
"When we were done the surgery she was able to get up and take her baby and walk out of the clinic," she said. "It was phenomenal."
Montrealer Alex Garnier also returned home on Friday.
Montrealer Alex Garnier described piles of bodies on every streetcorner in Port-au-Prince. (CBC)
He had been in Port-au-Prince visiting family members when the quake hit.
He broke down in tears as he described his horrific experience.
"There were bodies everywhere, on every street corner," Garnier said. "After some days you could tell where the bodies were by the nauseating odour that was coming out of the buildings."
Evacuees offered counselling
The evacuees are being provided with medical and psychological care, said the Quebec government’s emergency management coordinator, Michel C. Doré.
"What we’ve witnessed is a whole range of people relieved in some cases, but also with a heavy emotional toll," Doré said. "They’ve been without food or water for many days. They have been through significant challenges to go to the embassy to move towards the airport and then coming here on a cargo plane.
"Everything we can do to provide them with dignity support and comfort we do once they arrive here."
Government officials are being assisted by the Red Cross and community groups including Sun Youth.
The group’s director of emergency services, Tommy Kulcyzk, issued an appeal Friday to companies with access to warm winter clothing.
"A lot of people didn’t have time to pack. They’re’ coming here with light clothing and sandals," Kulczyk said.
The organization has enough to help evacuees for a week to a week and a half, Kulczyk said.
But, government officials believe this operation could last much longer.
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