Bob Beckett has been to Haiti 17 times since a devastating earthquake struck the Caribbean nation in 2010, so hearing about another yet another quake there Aug. 14 is hard to take.
Add on his connection to Afghanistan, where those he knows are hoping he can help them escape, and he’s feeling a little overwhelmed right now. “I’m just Bob Beckett.”
But Beckett won’t be leaving Canada any time soon. Going to Haiti right now would be very dangerous, he said. “As much as I’d like to go back down, it’s just certainly not on the radar under the circumstances.”
The headlines are heartbreaking, Beckett said. “I look at Haiti and I go: ‘How much more can it take?’ ”
The 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southwestern Haiti on Saturday has claimed at least 1,297 lives and left at least 5,700 people injured. Global Affairs Canada said that as of Monday afternoon, there had been no reports of Canadians being affected. Estimates put the death toll from the 2010 earthquake at up to 300,000 people.
Beckett’s last visit to Haiti came when the United Nations pulled out of the country, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He said he has been involved with two orphanages in Haiti through the City of Langford and the West Shore Rotary Club and has been assured that everything is fine at one of the them, Baby Jesus of Prague.
“They felt the earthquake but it wasn’t close to the epicentre.”
He hasn’t heard directly about the other, the Divine Hand, but said it was even farther from the epicentre.
The latest earthquake is another blow to Haiti, which is also weathering a tropical storm and has dealt with poor governance and corruption, said Beckett, a Sooke School Board trustee and former Langford fire chief.
“There’s lots of folks out there that want to help, but it just seems that they get knocked down every time.”
The Canadian Red Cross has launched a Haiti Earthquake Appeal, with donations being taken through redcross.ca, 1-800-418-1111 and local Red Cross offices. Chiran Livera, senior manager of response operations, said Red Cross volunteers are in place and goods are already being distributed.
“The main focus right now is still search-and-rescue efforts for the Red Cross, and then providing that medical assistance,” he said. “So we’re transporting people to the hospitals and people that are displaced are in shelters, school and churches.”
Sending money is the best way to help, he said.
“We want to purchase things locally there, we want to support the economy,” Livera said. “This as all part of the bigger effort.”
Beckett’s link to Afghanistan stems from a visit to New York three days after 9/11 with Langford Mayor Stew Young and Bruce Brown, then a West Shore RCMP staff sergeant.
After NATO went into Afghanistan, Beckett decided to get involved in sending firefighting equipment there. He visited the country himself, along with two other Langford firefighters, and offered some training programs.
“Then we started to bring the delegations over here, three or four firefighters at a time.”
Two doctors also came to Canada, as well. One of them has reached out seeking help getting him and his family out of the country, where the Taliban has swept into the capital and toppled the Western-back government. The Red Cross says thousands have been injured in fighting.
A second request came Monday from the family of a now-dead firefighter he knew there “because of his involvement with Langford and the work that he did in Afghanistan with us.”
Beckett said he will do what he can to help. “This gets back to the global community, whether it’s Haiti, whether it’s Afghanistan. If we don’t reach out and recognize the world is one community then we’re never going to move ahead.”
