This is the second dispatch from Haiti by Paris-based documentary film-maker and producer Tom Woods. The first appeared on The Essential Edge on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. As previously noted, Woods has produced a video on the aftermath of the earthquake which is available to public broadcasters and humanitarian organizations on a pro bono basis. For further information, please contact Woods TV , Paris.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- The driver from the United Nations car pool drove at speed from the UN compound through the streets to Port au Prince. The streets were unlit and teeming with people. As usual in the third world I wondered if this was not to be one of the more dangerous moments in my journey. From time to time, we passed open fires by the roadside.

After a number of wrong turns, we reached the home of our hosts in a part of Haiti that was relatively untouched by the earthquake. While much of the city had been destroyed only days early, this building lay outside the fault line on top of a hill. Unbelievably, both our cell phones and our hosts’ cell phones were working. This meant that not only were we guided to our destination, but were waved into the garage through a steel door built into the hillside.

Once inside, after the surreal atmosphere of travelling through a darkened city where most of the inhabitants were living under tarps and tents or with no shelter at all, we were introduced to the four people, three of them western aid workers, who were putting us up. They sat bathed in candle light enjoying a civilized dinner. We could have been anywhere. For a moment, it was almost possible to forget where we were and why we had come.

They welcomed us to their table and we were able to provide them with a much-needed bottle of wine. They had run out the day before. The hum of the generator signalled that whatever electricity there was did not come from the power grid. They spoke of the quake and of friends lost but at that point it hardly seemed real. For all intents and purposes, we could have been in New York, Geneva or Paris. One of them, Mark, had worked for the NGO Medecins du Monde (MDM) out of Quebec, that had been providing needy Haitians with basic medical services over the course of the last few years. His partner Richard ran a UN-affiliated program that supported cottage industries. Both had been in Haiti for six months before the quake hit.

Mark offered to let me follow him through Port au Prince when he made his rounds the next day. We had little or no idea of what awaited us. Grateful for a place to sleep and dead tired after our trip, we spread our mats on the floor and tried to get some rest. At dawn the next morning, my colleagues returned to the UN compound near the airport.

I set out with Mark and Alain, a relative who had been visiting, and Genevieve, an attractive young woman from Quebec who was accompanying Mark to their field office in town where she worked as a volunteer. She had been on vacation in Canada when the earthquake hit. She was returning to Port au Prince for the first time since.

Before leaving, I took some photographs and video from the terrace overlooking the city. In the early morning light I could see smoke from the many campfires that had burned through the night. I was struck by the fact that not a single building rose above the city’s sky line. A few minutes into the drive down into the city, Genevieve and I realized the extent of the destruction.

We passed concrete buildings that were once several stories high but t had collapsed into rubble standing no more than a few meters above the ground. It was immediately obvious that anyone trapped inside stood little chance of surviving. The floors had pan-caked into one another in the space of 30 seconds when the earthquake struck.

I quickly understood that the survivors with the broken and amputated limbs and head injuries that I had seen at the tent clinics set up at the airport the night before were the lucky ones. The streets were filled with people. None dared to enter the buildings still left standing for fear of an aftershock of which there have been many. By January 24, there had been no less that 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or more on the Richter scale.

Continuing with our drive, I looked to the left towards a canyon or ravine that led from the hillsides, where many of the wealthier Haitians lived. Hundreds of dwellings had been leveled and had simply slid down “en masse” down into the ravine. The smell of death and decay was everywhere. Many of the Haitians wore scarves or clinical masks on their faces.

Genevieve was stunned as was I as we wound our way through what were to her once familiar streets and now almost unrecognizable. Mark recounted how he had tried, with his driver, to make his way to the MDM offices as he headed into town the day after the cataclysm. The roads had been rendered impassable, blocked by debris and rubble. He had been obliged to turn back. For the past three days, however, he had made the round trip journey successfully. Our Haitian driver handled the four-wheel-drive vehicle expertly, deftly weaving his way around the rubble.

Everywhere we looked the massive destruction to the city’s infrastructure with its fallen buildings was self evident. The entire population of Port au Prince was in the street. We were driving fast, or as fast as we could given the conditions, miraculously avoiding running anyone over in the process. There was no sign of police or UN patrols on the way. Clearly it would not be prudent to walk the streets unaccompanied, camera in hand.

On the grounds of public buildings and parks, tent cities had sprung up. The city was no longer functioning as such. Ministries now totally destroyed no longer housed the bureaucrats who had worked for the state. The government had vanished. People lined up in front of fire trucks distributing drinking water. Surprisingly I saw men sweeping up rubbish. I asked our driver if they had been sent out by the authorities. “There are no authorities,” he replied. Building after building had collapsed. From time to time, one saw one which stood miraculously intact.

Alain, who by profession was a mason back in Quebec, explained that for the most part the structures had been built with substandard concrete inadequately reinforced by the steel known as “rybar” by corrupt builders. Only the rich could afford to build the masonry houses that had survived. Some of the lighter, (many of them wooden), buildings remained standing. Their light structures had enabled them to sway with the quake.

Finally, we arrived at our destination. Our driver blew the horn and once again heavy steel gates swung open and we were waved into to the NGO compound. Inside the office the staff was assembling. As Mark and Genevieve greeted their colleagues, I could see in the morning light that their faces were wan, features drawn. Their expressions showed the strain of worry and lack of sleep, but also their grief and loss. They all seemed to have known someone who had died in the quake or were mourning a missing family member. Tears were shed but they went about their business. Mark and his team prepared for another day of ministering to the wounded and seeking out the living in a city where hundreds of thousands had perished in less than a minute late Tuesday afternoon (16.54 precisely) on January 12, 2010.

I was there as a humanitarian with a set of skills as a cameraman and reporter. I had gone as a volunteer to allow me to bear witness, on a personal level, unencumbered by heavy equipment and attendant crew. It was actually a relief not to be a member of the press corps.

My initial hope had been to bring word of their plight once the TV crews and reporters had left and the camera crews had been dispatched to cover the next “event”. I thought that I could remain dispassionate and objective. I had seen my share of suffering in the past both in Africa and Asia. Journalists like to think of themselves as being hardened to such events.

But things change in life. And one realizes that one simply remain aloof regarding everything as a ‘story’ rather something that becomes part of you. I found myself crying with them; the deeply personal nature of this tragedy and the human toll it had taken slowly sinking in.

Tom Woods is an American documentary film-maker and producer based in Paris with over 30 years experience. He runs the international television company Woods TV .