A 50-something-year-old South Korean businessman, who had been reported missing until earlier in the day, has been found safe by a disaster assistance team dispatched from Seoul, the ministry said, confirming safety of all Korean nationals in the region.
“Some 70 of our people, who had been residing in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, have been confirmed safe,” Kim Young-sun, spokesperson for the foreign ministry said.
Many of the South Koreans were already heading to nearby states like the Dominican Republic or Panama, and a group of five Seoul diplomats and volunteer workers were en route to Haiti to aid the evacuation process, according to the ministry.
Maj. Lee Sun-hee, dispatched to the region as part of the U.N. peacekeeping forces, also confirmed all South Koreans are “safe and relatively healthy” in her first interview with local media after the earthquake and two aftershocks of magnitudes 5.9 and 5.0.
“We (Koreans) are all relatively in good heath,” the 43-year-old major said in a telephone interview.
“The situation here is grim though. It resembles a place stricken by war or riot.”
“The worst-hit regions are not even approachable,” Lee added. “I even saw ... injured people neglected on the roads the first day.”
About 20 aftershocks have hit the country since the Wednesday quake, leaving people very scared and confused, she continued.
“We feel blocked off. Satellite telephone is our only means of contact with the outside world,” said Lee, adding people in Haiti are in “desperate need for food and drinking water.”
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Park Sae-jin
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