Irish missionaries and aid agencies are at the forefront of helping the beleagured people of Haiti writes Sarah Meade

''We are devastated as the first three un-coffined bodies arrived here from Port au Prince today. The house fell in on the three students, aged 15, 21 and 22.''

Sr Rose Kelly, the only Irish nun working with the order of the Religious of Jesus and Mary in Haiti, recounts details from the aftermath of last week's earthquake. Sr Kelly spoke to The Irish Catholic via email from the order's base at Jean Rabel, a town several hours from the capital Port au Prince.

The order's house in the capital was flattened, killing the three young people inside. Two others also died at a nearby house, but their bodies could not be removed from the rubble. ''It was heartrending to hear that one of them did not die immediately and was calling out, 'Save me, Save me','' said Sr Kelly.

Seminarians

A number of order's seminarians were unaccounted for in Port au Prince, and their formation priest was confirmed dead. Luckily, the order's house in Jean Rabel was undamaged. But Sr Kelly says many of the workers and members have been left fearing the worst, as they struggle to make contact with friends and family in the capital.

''Haiti is a forgotten country,'' says Caroline O'Connor, manager of UCD's Volunteers Overseas charity, which has been working in the deprived Caribbean nation for five years. The poorest country in the Western hemisphere went from ''forgotten'' to international disaster zone on January 12, when it was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake which has left its capital in complete devastation.

Volunteers

Caroline and 12 UCD alumni got back from Haiti the day before the earth shook. ''It's all the more real, as we've just gotten back. We've been in touch with our local volunteers, and they haven't been affected, but we haven't been able to contact others who are based in Port au Prince,'' the 26 year old told The Irish Catholic on her return to Dublin.

Although the tales of devastation are in their thousands, some miraculous stories have emerged. Close to the ruins of the presidential palace, residents dug for hours to rescue a 13-year-old girl called Bea. She had been trapped in the rubble for two days. A huge cheer was heard as she was pulled out alive.

The International Red Cross estimates that one in three Haitians, or about three million people, have been affected by the earthquake. These are people who were already living in abject poverty, according to Fr Tony Coote, who set up the UCD Volunteer Overseas charity six years ago.

''Life is almost impossible,'' Fr Coote told The Irish Catholic. ''Most people live on just $700 a year, a lot of which comes from relatives in the US. Life is unbearable. Most people are trapped, they will never get a visa to the US, and their life is built around a daily grind of getting by.''

The massive international relief effort which swung into action just hours after the quake has been hampered by Haiti's poor infrastructure. ''The roads are very basic,'' says Fr Coote. ''A lot of towns are cut off, particularly due to frequent flooding. Electricity is a perpetual problem, it comes and goes all the time, and there is no postal system.''

UN Special Envoy

The international response has been swift, for a country that is often overlooked by Western governments. Thousands of US paratroopers have been deployed to the region, while the World Bank is funding $100m of aid. Former US President Bill Clinton, who is the UN Special Envoy for Haiti, has described the quake as ''one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas''.

Although relief has been arriving since the weekend, humanitarian organisations are warning that a lack of food, drinking water and sanitation remain a major problem. But in Haiti, where hundreds of thousands of people live in squalid slums and shanty towns, running water has never been a reality.

The Caribbean country is also no stranger to natural disasters. A series of storms killed almost one thousand people in 2008, and up to a million were left homeless after four hurricanes struck in just a few weeks. Each disaster has left an even greater mark due to years of deforestation, and nonexistent building standards, leaving homes easy to flood, and collapse. ''Every single disaster seems to be attacking them,'' says Caroline O'Connor.

But, if Caroline is to believed, the resilience of the people of Haiti may be what gets them through this catastrophe. ''The Haitian people are so warm spirited, so determined, they have been given such a heard deal, but yet they get on with it.''