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Haiti Jesus Survives, (c) artharris.com

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

There’s nothing she can do for close friend Nathalie Michel, 33, a bank teller burned to death in the killer earthquake when her crumbled office building caught fire in downtown Port au Prince six days ago.

But veteran translator Viviane Boulos (French, Creole, English), an old friend of mine who is homebound with a broken leg in a suburb called Petion-Ville just outside the capital, is fielding e mails from friends and neighbors on the prowl for survivors, and begging me, begging me, to direct rescuers to the young mother of a newborn locals are telling her was still trapped and fighting to stay alive Tuesday beneath the collapsed Carribean Market on Delmas Road —an astounding seven days after the earthquake destroyed her city.

The missing mother is Paola Handal, says Viviane, who was buying food for her baby when the killer quake hit. “I’m getting e mails from witnesses who are telling me she’s alive,” says Viviane. “I was so upset when I heard rescuers were calling off the searches yesterday because they said no one could live this long, but people ARE still alive, and still need help.

In a new detail, Viviane tells The Bald Truth Paola’s relatives she knows were receiving text messages from a man claiming to be trapped beneath the pancaked grocery near Paola and that she was still alive. Then his texts suddenly stopped, though it’s unclear when. “The guy was also under the debris when he was texting her relatives,” Viviane added in an e mail I just received. “By now, he must have run out of juice.” Read the rest of this entry »