Two years ago tomorrow, January 12, a catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, leveling thousands of structures and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Haiti, already an impoverished nation, appears in many ways to have barely started recovery 24 months later, despite more than $2 billion in foreign aid. So many homes were destroyed that temporary tent cities hastily set up throughout Port-au-Prince have begun to appear permanent -- more than 550,000 people still live in the dirty and dangerous encampments throughout the Haitian capital. Schools are being rebuilt, and some residents are now beginning to move out of the encampments, rediscovering a sense of community. But jobs and a sense of security remain elusive. Gathered here are recent photos from a still-suffering Haiti, two years after the earthquake.
Haiti: 2 Years After the Quake
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A man walks home as the sun begins to set, in the mountains near Thomazeau, northeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 16, 2011. Two years after the January 12, 2010 earthquake, more than half a million Haitians are still homeless, and many who have homes are worse off than before , as recovery bogs down under a political leadership that has been preoccupied with elections and their messy aftermath. #
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa -
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Members of the Haiti Amputee Soccer team play a game marking the International Day of Persons With Disabilities, organized by Partners In Health at the Zanmi Ben Center in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti, on December 3, 2011. #
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa -
A girl walks past an abandoned helicopter at a camp set up for people displaced by the 2010 earthquake, in what used to be an airstrip in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 4, 2012. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
Haiti's new President, Michel Martelly (center) walks during a ceremony commemorating the 208th anniversary of the 1803 Vertieres battle that led to Haiti's independence from France in 1804, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 18, 2011. #
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Students wait for the first bell at the Roger Anglade school on the first day of the new school year in Port-au-Prince, on October 3, 2011. The school year was delayed by a month because the administration of Haiti's President Michel Martelly had yet to iron out details on the National Fund for Education, a new program that helps to ensure Haitian children can enroll in school through the use of tuition subsidies. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
Andersen Emile, of Haiti, hangs off of the edge of a cliff suspended by a rope bridge during a training exercise on October 28 2011 in Farmington, New Mexico. Emile, 30, from Haiti, spent the last two weeks of October in Farmington studying advanced rescue techniques with San Juan College's Fire and Rescue Sciences program. Emile, who left for Haiti Sunday, said his goal is to bring American-style search and rescue to the small island nation. #
AP Photo/The Daily Times, Brandon Iwamoto -
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Mamoune Destin, 33, wife of Meristin Florival, stands in their tent at the Beaubin camp for people displaced by the powerful 2010 earthquake in Petionville, on January 1, 2012. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
Posters of victims of the January 12, 2011 earthquake cover a wall on January 10, 2012 in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. UN agencies said Tuesday that Haitians face many challenges on the second anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 200,000 of their people. #
Thony Belizaire/AFP/Getty Images -
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An orphanage under construction in Grand Goave, Haiti, viewed on December 21, 2011. Massachusetts home builder Leonard Gengel's family is opening an orphanage in honor of his daughter Britney, a 19-year-old college sophomore whose last text message to her family before she died in the 2010 earthquake said that she wanted to open an orphanage in Haiti. With her last text message in mind, Gengel's family is now making it their mission to carry out her dream and aid children in this devastated island nation. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
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People displaced by the January 2010 earthquake sleep inside St. Ann's church in Port-au-Prince, on September 16, 2011. Haiti's government is focusing on redeveloping the countryside to relieve strain on its over crowded capital. Officials are hopeful that the lure of new jobs and housing will help to evenly distribute the country's population. #
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French parents with adopted Haitian children take part in a demonstration on November 19, 2011 in front of France's Foreign Affairs ministry in Paris, to ask French authorities to give a legal statute for the little survivors of the Haiti quake they adopted. #
Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images -
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A Haitian man sells used shoes in Port-au-Prince amidst earthquake damage on January 9, 2012. According to the UN some 50 percent of the rubble left by the January 12, 2010 earthquake still litters the Haitian capital. #
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Haitians demonstrate in Port-au-Prince against the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), on September 23, 2011. They protested against the alleged sexual assault of an 18-year-old man in Port-Salut by Uruguayan Peacekeepers. Haitians also blame UN Peacekeepers of a cholera outbreak that began in 2010. #
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Demonstrators dance around a fake coffin with the UN initials on it during a protest against the United Nations, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on October 19, 2011. Dr. Paul Farmer, one of the Caribbean nation's most prominent health experts, told The Associated Press that cholera has sickened more than 450,000 people in a nation of 10 million, or nearly 5 percent of the population, and killed more than 6,000. #
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Members of the U.N. Military group CIMO shoot tear gas canisters at demonstrators, who called for MINUSTAH to leave Haiti, in the Champ de Mars section of Port-au-Prince, on September 14, 2011. #
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People sit outside a house that was destroyed by the January 2010 earthquake in Port au Prince, on January 3, 2012. Two years later, rubble removal remains a priority in the reconstruction effort. #
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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter uses a saw, working on a home as his wife Rosalynn helps while they visit a Habitat for Humanity project in Leogane, Haiti, on November 7, 2011. The Carters joined volunteers from around the world to build 100 homes in partnership with earthquake-affected families in Haiti during a week-long Habitat for Humanity housing project. #
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A civilian volunteer receives military training from veterans of Haiti's disbanded army in Port-au-Prince November 26, 2011. President Michel Martelly's administration has created a commission to develop a plan to restore the military, which was disbanded in 1995. #
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A man who lost a hand during the earthquake applauds the speech of Haiti's President Michel Martelly during the re-inauguration of the St Pierre public plaza in Port-au-Prince, on November 11, 2011. The plaza was one of many where people left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake set up shelter. #
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A child wades through a sea of styrofoam and plastic containers looking for plastic bottles that the family will sell for money in the slum area of Citi Soliel in Port-au-Prince, on September 13, 2011. #
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Darlene Claircin, 28, displaced by the 2010 earthquake, reads her Bible inside a shed-like, temporary shelter built on a concrete slab by the Red Cross, that she and her husband are renting in Port-au-Prince, on January 3, 2012. #
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Spain's Queen Sofia and a young girl offer kisses during the Queen's visit to a Sisters of Charity center in the Cite Soleil slum, in Port-au-Prince, on October 8, 2011. Spain and Haiti have not traditionally had strong diplomatic ties but Spain is among the countries that have made the biggest pledges to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. According to the Office of U.N. Special Envoy, Spain pledged $359.7 million for 2010 and 2011. #
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa -
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Two men play cards in a house that was destroyed by the earthquake in the Fort Nationale neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, on November 23, 2011. An ambitious reconstruction panel, co-chaired former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was created three months after the January 2010 to coordinate efforts to rebuild Haiti after the quake destroyed much of the capital and surrounding area, throwing more than a million homeless into huge, squalid resettlement camps. Almost two years after an earthquake devastated Haiti, less than half the $4.6 billion in pledged aid has been distributed and political squabbling is threatening to bringing a coordinated reconstruction efforts to an abrupt halt. #
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa -
An orphan cries inside a UNICEF bus as he is taken away after the closure of the Son of God orphanage In Port-au-Prince, on October 21, 2011. The orphanage, whose director was accused by U.S. missionaries of not feeding children and selling donated goods, was closed in a rare crackdown by Haitian authorities. Police officers and child welfare officials sealed off the unpaved street in front of the Son of God orphanage and the children who lived there were loaded into a UNICEF bus and taken to new homes. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
A pregnant woman walks next to burning tires at the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince, on December 24,2011. Residents set a barricade to demand money from the government for the Christmas season. #
AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery -
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People dressed as colonial soldiers pretend to be battling during a ceremony commemorating the 208th anniversary of the 1803 Vertieres battle that led to Haiti's independence from France in 1804, in Port-au-Prince, on November 18, 2011. #
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Lucienne Bounba stands outside her tent in a camp across the airport in Port-au-Prince January 10, 2012. Sixty-year-old Bounba moved into her own apartment recently after having lived at the camp following the January 2010 earthquake which destroyed her home in Carrefour. #
Reuters/Swoan Parker
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