The death toll from the January 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti was significantly lower than the toll claimed by Haitian leaders, according to the draft of a report prepared for USAID not yet publicly released, the Associated Press/Herald Sun reports (5/31). According to the Agence France-Presse, State Department representative Mark Toner said the draft report, which USAID commissioned from Washington-based LTL Strategies, “contained internal inconsistencies with its own findings” so the department is “reviewing these inconsistencies with LTL Strategies to ensure information we release is accurate” (Troutman, 5/28).

“News agencies, which obtained a copy of the document, say it estimates that the death toll was between 46,000 and 85,000 people, far below the Haitian government’s figure of more than a quarter million people. The report also questions official United Nations figures that around 680,000 people remain homeless,” VOA News writes (5/30). The draft report, dated May 13, “draws its estimates from door-to-door surveys carried out by [USAID] over 29 days in January,” according to AFP. “There was no comment Friday from the office of President Michel Martelly,” the news service writes. A Haitian government spokesperson who asked not to be named said, “The official figures remain the same. It’s surprising that we would talk about new figures now” (5/28).

The AP reports that the study’s lead author, Timothy Schwartz, “declined comment today on the USAID report but said in a blog post that no one should be surprised about a revised death toll given the previous conflicting numbers and lack of justification for the official figures” (5/30).