Haiti: One Month Later by the Numbers

One month later, rain pours into the streets of Port-au-Prince. Some call it "fresh misery." I think, how many more buildings will collapse, how many more people will die? But I also think: how many still have hope? How many will view this rain as a washing away of the things that hurt most?

Stories of survival are continuously recounted. I've heard of daring feats of escape from collapsing buildings. I'm saddened by the number of days family members have had to do without food and I'm disturbed by the number of people they have watched die. The story of the devastation in Haiti is at times best chronicled using numerical values.

7.0 -- The magnitude of the earthquake.

21:53:10 UTC -- The time the earthquake stuck.

35 -- The number of seconds the earthquake lasted.

230,000 -- The official Haitian government death toll.

1 million -- The number of my countrymen left homeless.

500,000 -- The number of Haitian homeless living in camps.

380,000 -- The number of Haitian orphans.

2 -- The number of dollars many of the island nation's resident's lived on a day.

2,000 -- The estimated numbers of amputations that have taken place. (This must be much higher as some hospitals are performing 30 to 100 a day.)

5,000 -- The estimated number of escaped prisoners.

10 -- The number of years experts says it will take to rebuild.

63 million -- The tons of rubble that need to be removed before the rebuilding can take place.

3 million -- The number of people who need help.

57 million -- The number of dollars initially raised by the Hope for Haiti telethon.

Countless -- the number of prayers lifted up, the number of tears cried, the number of hearts broken in Haiti and all over the diaspora.