Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Fol­low­ing the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake on Tues­day in Haiti, a Cari­com mem­ber state, the As­so­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean States' (ACS) sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Luis Fer­nan­do An­drade Fal­la, has called on the me­dia to play a ma­jor role in the net­work­ing of such an emer­gency. Fal­la was speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at Ernst & Young Build­ing, Sweet Bri­ar Road, St Clair, yes­ter­day. Fal­la said though Cari­com had an of­fice in Haiti which had been in­stru­men­tal in the col­lec­tion of in­for­ma­tion, there was on­ly so much it could do with the mag­ni­tude of the dis­as­ter. "We have sent out news to the en­tire re­gion with re­gards to the need of as­sis­tance. Some in­sti­tu­tions have been re­spond­ing, but this is a mat­ter for all to get in­volved," he said.

Fal­la added that the me­dia must play a key role with re­gards to in­for­ma­tion be­ing col­lect­ed and con­veyed as present­ly, it is dif­fi­cult to even con­nect with the Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties to es­tab­lish the state's im­me­di­ate needs

"It has been dif­fi­cult for us to have a con­tin­u­ous con­nec­tion, due to the ex­tent of the dam­age in Haiti, but we do have an am­bas­sador to Haiti on the ground who is able to con­nect with us from time-to-time," he added

Fal­la said as more de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on the ex­tent of the dam­age and loss­es be­comes avail­able, the Sec­re­tari­at would be avail­able, as well as the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), to as­sist Haiti. "The ACS awaits fur­ther news from the Hait­ian au­thor­i­ties on the coun­try's sit­u­a­tion and needs as de­ter­mined by its na­tion­al ex­perts," he said.