A preliminary report prepared by a U.S. agency put the number of people killed and left homeless by last year’s massive earthquake at a level far lower than figures initially reported by Haitian officials.
According to May 30 reports by the Associated Press, Haitian officials set an official death toll figure of 316,000, far above the range of 46,000 to 85,000 stated in the U.S. report. The U.S. Agency for International Development prepared the report, but has not publicly released findings due to inconsistencies within the study.
“The first draft of the report contained internal inconsistencies with its own findings,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Preeti Shah told the AP. “We are reviewing these inconsistencies to ensure information we release is accurate.”
Haitian officials told the news agency that they have not seen the report and could not comment.
Sampling conducted in the hardest hit area of Port-au-Prince revealed that 895,000 people moved into temporary camps around the capital where there are 375,000 remaining in “tarps” and “wooden shanties.”
Those numbers conflict with figures provided by the U.N. International Organization of Migration, the AP reported, which claimed that a total of 1.5 million people moved to camps following the disaster where an estimated 680,000 people are still living in those camps around the capital.
In 2010, the country endured a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which destroyed the country’s infrastructure and as a result sought multi-billion dollars in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance from government agencies and corporations around the globe.
According to research by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, 96 organizations gave more than $1 billion in aid to Haiti. In comparison, as of April 1, the center tracked 32 organizations that have raised or pledged a total of $184 million to the relief efforts of the March Japan earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.