Engineers Rescue Cultural Treasures in Haiti

Architects and structural engineers from around the world have gathered in Haiti to access the damage to buildings by the earthquake in hopes of speeding up reconstruction.

But, with priority given to homes and important social buildings such as hospitals, factories and schools, it is not clear what will happen to Haiti's destroyed national treasures.

Zhang Ru takes a look.

Haiti's master paintings are housed in a small museum near the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.

The building sustained substantial damage after the January 12th earthquake. The museum's curator is unsure whether it is safe to rescue some of the national treasures locked inside it.

The library building is still standing, but large parts of the interior have collapsed.

The good news is that most of the paintings were unaffected by the quake.

But Robinson Lexis, the museum's deputy director, says there is one room the staff has not been able to check, and they have no idea what state the artwork is in.

"Our problem is that in the permanent collection depot area, we can't really enter it. There is a lot of damage as blocks fell inside. So for the moment we can't really tell the level of damage. We need an expert from rescue services to find out more about the situation of the works. That is our objective now."

Structural engineers have scoured the city during the last two weeks to assess the damage.

But their job is not just to decide which buildings are structurally sound and which are not. They are also working to find out how to retrieve treasures buried under the rubble or, as in the case of the national library, stuck on the third floor of a semi-collapsed building.

Reginald Desroches is a structural engineer with the United Nations.

"What we are going to do is: Haiti 's national archives are on the third floor, and what we need to assess is if we can get to the third floor so as to get the country's archives out. That's why we are here. We have to systematically assess the building to see how to get up there."

The volunteer, non-profit organization Architecture for Humanity has launched an urgent appeal to rebuild the quake-affected areas using safe and sound materials for quake-resistant buildings.

But the jury is still out on what will happen to the few national treasures in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Zhang Ru, CRI News.