Church and Aid Groups Search for Own Amid Haiti Destruction

Church aid groups and humanitarian organizations active in Haiti are searching for members who were caught in last week’s earthquake, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Several religious groups operate missions in Port-au-Prince, the island nation’s devastated capital. Two high-ranking United Methodist Church officials, including the head of the organization’s relief committee, died as a result of the collapse of Port-au-Prince’s Hotel Montana, and a contractor for Compassion International, a charity in Colorado that aids children overseas, is also believed to have been caught in the hotel rubble.

Lynn University, in Boca Raton, Fla., is searching for four students and two faculty members who were part of team that arrived in Haiti hours before the quake to provide housing and food aid.

The head of global aid group IMA World Health returned to his Maryland home Saturday after being trapped for 50 hours in the Hotel Montana wreckage, reports The Washington Post. Rick Santos and several other survivors were pulled from the rubble by French firefighters Friday.