Haiti: 5 years, 54 seconds later

On 12 January, 2010 Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, was flattened by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, which lasted for 54 never-ending seconds, killed over 220,000 people, left 300,000 injured and half a million homeless. Five years after this catastrophic event the Caribbean island is still in a disastrous state: 250,000 people still have no homes, only a tiny fraction of hospitals and schools have been rebuilt and the cholera epidemic, which erupted in the months following the earthquake, has still not subsided. There is, however, another Haiti - one of stories of individuals and daily acts of heroism impregnated with hope - that some of the international media have reported on in a piecemeal manner. My photo feature gathers together and tells the stories of these individual experiences, demonstrating how the rebirth of a nation and hope in the future begin with the involvement of each and every individual. —Daniele Bellocchio