CELEBRITY chef José Andrés landed in Port-au-Prince about 20 hours ago with a full set of kitchen equipment to feed survivors of the devastating earthquake which has left 1,419 dead.
Rescue workers lift a man to safety from the rubble of a collapsed building in Haïti following an earthquake reaching 7.2 on the Richter scale
Born in Asturias on Spain's northern coast, José Andrés has lived in the New York area for around 27 years and, in addition to his up-market eateries, runs soup kitchens and a global charity which feeds people struck by natural or man-made disasters.
World Central Kitchen has cooked meals and given food parcels to victims of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, the massive blast in Beirut, the forest fires in Greece, civil servants unpaid after Donald Trump's administration shutdown, and is now setting up an aid centre in India after joining forces with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Now, he and his team are in the heart of the ruins of Haïti, struck by a quake reaching 7.2 on the Richter scale and exacerbated by a replica of 4, providing much-needed nourishment to the tens of thousands who are injured, homeless and evacuated.
On arrival in the early hours of Monday, José Andrés tweeted: “We just landed with more cooking equipment to expand operations.”
He also confirmed that the western hemisphere's poorest country is about to be hit by yet another natural disaster.
“Rain is starting from tropical storm Grace, adding to the difficult situation for everyone after the earthquake,” José Andrés tweeted.
Just a month and a half ago, the Caribbean country – which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic – was thrust into political turmoil when its president, Jovenel Moïse, 53, was assassinated in what was thought to have been an organised attack involving Colombian hitmen.
Wracked by poverty and political instability, the densely-populated Haïti, home to around 11.3 million, is still recovering from the last huge earthquake, a magnitude 7 tremor with its epicentre in the capital, over 11 years ago.
The January 2010 quake left over 300,000 dead and more than a million lost everything, in what was said to have been the most devastating in 200 years.
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