Top Spanish chef feeds Haïti earthquake victims

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.

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.

Haïti received multi-million funds to rebuild itself after the tragedy, but with over 80% of its population living in severe poverty and unable to buy basic foodstuffs – not even a handful of rice, a lot of the time – eight in 10 of its most educated and qualified citizens having emigrated, being the third-most crowded nation in the Caribbean, with 70% of the headcount living off agriculture in what is now a drought-stricken and largely deforested territory, with up to 40% of the State annual budget being made up of international aid funds, and a life expectancy of barely 61 years, the nation and its people have all possible odds stacked against them and much of the social, economic and territorial damage left behind by the 2010 quake is likely to remain there for decades.

Recovery will now be considerably harder and longer with a similar-sized earthquake having ravaged the country, and a tropical storm hot on its heels.

As for José Andrés, his World Central Kitchen is also working hard in his country of birth – a devastating forest fire in the province of Ávila, in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, has already wiped out nearly 30,000 acres of countryside and forced thousands of evacuations in the town of Navalacruz, the childhood home of former Spanish national team captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas.

World Central Kitchen, via local partner Pepa Muñoz of the restaurant El Qüenco de Pepa, is providing food parcels and meals for the evacuees.

The blaze started through sparks from a car which broke down, and the smoke is visible from the Pyrénées.

Iker Casillas has sent words of encouragement and support to residents in his town of birth.