It is a day in January whose year is not always mentioned. It has been that way for 16 years, since that Tuesday when, in 35 seconds, everything collapsed. The ground danced beneath our feet. The rumble of the seismic waves accompanied the sound of the collapse of places of life. The silence before the screams, the blanket of dust over the sky of Port-au-Prince, the alert… and that Himalayan pile of corpses as bodies were pulled from the rubble here and there.

Death, mocking, had its tempo, its designs. By cruel chance, it struck. Instantly. Others wandered the labyrinths of a slow and painful end. Some spoke, confided in loved ones, volunteer rescuers, before being carried away.