Haiti marks third anniversary of quake

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Haiti Saturday observed the third anniversary of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left more than a million homeless.

Communities across the Caribbean country have planned ceremonies for anniversary, Voice of America reported.

Much of the country still lives poverty in makeshift camps around the capital, Port-au-Prince. A cholera outbreak in the months after the earthquake struck in January 2010, infected about 640,000 people and killed an estimated 8,000, NPR reported.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a plan in December to rid Haiti and the Dominican Republic of cholera.

"Cholera can certainly be eliminated from Haiti," said lawyer Brian Concannon, who founded the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. "It's been eliminated from the United States, from England, from many countries in South America. This is basically 19th century technology that needs to be installed in Haiti."

Ban called on the international community Friday to continue its support for Haiti, U.N. News Centre said.

"My memories of the damage and suffering, which I saw first-hand during two visits, are still fresh, but I also have a keen sense of the progress that has been achieved in reconstruction and recovery over the past three years," Ban said in a message in observance of the earthquake. "I continue to call on the international community to stand with Haiti at its time of dire need."