Rajiv Shah takes helm of Haiti disaster

WASHINGTON - Less than a week after being sworn in as the head of the USAID, Indian American Rajiv Shah, 36, has been named coordinator of the US response to the Haiti earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in the western hemisphere in recent history.

Shah’s boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, was halfway around the world in Hawaii en route to Australia when the earthquake struck. President Barack Obama quickly promised “a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives.” Shah, the president said, would lead it.

“To ensure that we coordinate our effort, going forward, I have designated the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Rajiv Shah, to be our government’s unified disaster coordinator,” he said.

A medical doctor who also holds a degree in economics, Shah is the highest-ranking Indian American in any presidential administration.

“We are committed to a significant effort,” Shah later told reporters at the State Department, standing alongside Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of US Southern Command, and Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff.

Over the next 72 hours, he said, his job is to help save as many people as he can in Haiti. Countless numbers are buried under collapsed buildings, and many others are without food, clean water and shelter.

USAID deployed two urban search teams that specialize in digging people out of rubble, and the agency is working to deploy more, he said. It is also setting up mobile health clinics and coordinating food and water relief. “We are very focused on saving lives,” he said.

“The mission of USAID is my passion,” Shah told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his confirmation hearing last month. “As a young child, my parents - both immigrants from India - took me to visit their homeland,” where he saw “vast slums that were home to millions and continue to be.

“This early experience opened my eyes to a type of human suffering I had not previously witnessed and have not since forgotten.”

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)