GUY RAZ, host:
The numbers of dead in Haiti are overwhelming. The Red Cross puts the total so far at 50,000. Local government estimates are far higher. But every single death is an individual tragedy, one that leaves devastated family and friends.
NPR's Greg Allen heard one of those personal stories through a chance encounter at the Port-au-Prince airport.
GREG ALLEN: Wisdom Isahoro(ph) isn't from Haiti. He's Nigerian, a good-looking guy who appears to be in his early 20s. Since he graduated from college, he's been living and working in Port-au-Prince at his uncle's shoe factory. They made belts, shoes and leather bags in the city's Wibison(ph) neighborhood until the afternoon of January 12. Isahoro was in the shoe factory when the earthquake hit.
Mr. WISDOM ISAHORO: Suddenly, I realized (unintelligible) shaking. So I was up on top of the building. So eventually, I had to jump. The minute I jump, I saw everything. It's like everything is falling. I didn't believe my eyes, but I need to jump to save my life. When I came out, I saw the only - my uncle's son, the only son. The wife, my uncle, everybody is inside the building. Everything gets collapsed, the cars, they're back at the front of the garage, everything got collapsed. So...
ALLEN: But your uncle?
Mr. ISAHORO: My uncle? No. No, they didn't survive, with the wife. They didn't survive right now.
ALLEN: Your uncle and his wife both were killed.
Mr. ISAHORO: Yeah, they were dead right now.
ALLEN: Isahoro was waiting uncertainly outside the airport in Port-au-Prince when I met him. He was looking for a flight to get out of the country, he said to anywhere.
Mr. ISAHORO: I don't know where to go, anyway. I just want to leave this place to anywhere I can get myself for now.
ALLEN: Were you there when they pulled your uncle and his wife?
Mr. ISAHORO: Yeah, I was there. I was there. I was there.
ALLEN: What happened?
Mr. ISAHORO: (Unintelligible).
ALLEN: Did they use heavy equipment or just shovels and hammers?
Mr. ISAHORO: Oh, they use a digger.
ALLEN: A digger?
Mr. ISAHORO: Yeah, a digger. But the wife leg was cut, you know? We didn't see the legs. So all we saw is - the body. But it's only my uncle that had the complete body.
ALLEN: Yeah. And then you get them, and did you know what to do with the bodies then? I mean, what did you do with them?
Mr. ISAHORO: Just tied them up.
ALLEN: Tied them up.
Mr. ISAHORO: Yeah.
ALLEN: Yeah.
Mr. ISAHORO: We put them at the roadside. Those are people that carry the dead body. They had to carry.
ALLEN: So you left them on the roadside?
Asking questions is what reporters do. We gather information, write our stories and move on. Left behind are the people whose stories we tell.
When I last saw Wisdom Isahoro, he was sitting on the curb at the Port-au-Prince airport, his head in his arms, sobbing.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.