Prayer, mourning a year after Haiti quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The normally traffic-clogged streets of the Haitian capital turned quiet Wednesday as businesses closed and people walked in solemn processions to prayer services marking the anniversary of the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.

Many people wore white, a color associated with mourning in Haiti, and sang hymns as they navigated collapsed buildings and rubble from the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that left much of Port-au-Prince in ruins. The government increased the estimated death toll to more than 316,000 people, but it did not explain how it arrived at that number.

Evens Lormil joined mourners in a crowd at the Roman Catholic cathedral, its towering spires and vaulted roof now collapsed, waiting for a memorial Mass next to what was once a prominent landmark in a ragged downtown. The 35-year-old driver of the collective taxis known as tap-taps said his wife and two children were in the countryside north of the capital, still too traumatized by the quake to attend the service, or even live in the city.

"I'm here to mourn all the victims," he said before the Mass, which was held in a tent next to the ruined cathedral. "Even though life was bad before the earthquake, it got worse. I am hoping the country can move together and come forward."

Crisscrossing the central Champ de Mars Plaza were prayer groups who thanked God for sparing them from the earthquake, and others who took advantage of the day to promote women's rights, oppose the U.N. force that provides security in Haiti, and other causes.

"It is a grand day for us that we are able to give thanks to God that we are still here," one of the marchers, 54-year-old Acsonne Frederique, said as a preacher exhorted him and others in the cheering crowd to pray. "Others are here to repair our country. We are here to repair our souls."

President Rene Preval and former U.S. President Bill Clinton attended a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a new National Tax Office, where many workers were killed in one of the blows to the public sector that paralyzed the government following the earthquake.

Dignitaries from around the world are in Haiti to mark the anniversary. But they are also facing skepticism from a Haitian public that expected more progress toward reconstruction.

Aid groups say only about 5 percent of the rubble from the quake has been removed and the capital is strewn with 20 million cubic yards (meters) of collapsed concrete and twisted steel debris, enough to fill dump trucks that would encircle half the globe. At least a million displaced people, including 380,000 children, are still in 1,200 tent-and-shack encampments that sprung up after the quake.

Haitian-American musician Wyclef Jean said many people are still hopeful but there are limits to their patience.

"You see them here, you see their energy, and they are smiling. They have hope, which is faith, but they can only have hope and faith for so long," said Jean as he got into a car in downtown Port-au-Prince, surrounded by workers wearing the blue T-shirts of his Yele Haiti charity. "They are hoping that we at home do not forget them and that we put pressure on the powers that be to start the reconstruction because they want to work."