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02 November 2024

Haiti’s president narrowly escapes injury in quake

Published
By AP
When Haitians realised their National Palace was destroyed, many feared President Rene Preval was dead.

Turns out it was a very near miss.

First Lady Elisabeth Debrosse Preval recounted the first public details of the couple’s post-earthquake ordeal on Tuesday, telling reporters she and her husband left the historic Beaux-Arts palace in central Port-au-Prince about an hour before the magnitude-7 quake struck on the afternoon of January 12.

The couple went to an event at the state university law school, then drove to their private hillside home, and were just walking into the house in the Canape-Vert district when everything started to shake.

Debrosse Preval said, “We froze, then took three or four steps back, and the residence just fell before us”.

 

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