Haiti earthquake a boon to scrap-metal seekers in Port-au-Prince
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In the smoke and dust along Rue La Saline, at the edge of a rubble-strewn dump, a little man with missing front teeth hammered away at a shattered pillar of concrete.
Jean Robert Lemer, 45, had been laboring for hours to extract a piece of the iron rebar that ran through it. But he wasn’t making much progress.
If he had a hacksaw, he could cut off the exposed metal. But he only had a little household hammer.
The sun was taking a toll, searing through a pall of white cement dust and the black smoke of smoldering trash.
Lemer started pounding at the portion of wire sticking out of the concrete, thick as a pencil, hoping he could at least break that off.
Continue reading Haiti scavengers take a big hit with quake.
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