replaced several broken sewer pipes that were part of a system set up for their neighborhood . But this individual rebuilding alarms teams of engineers studying the damage in Haiti after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake January 12 . `` It worries me , '' said Reginald Desroches , a Haitian-American engineer from Georgia Tech who is part of a volunteer assessment team working with the United Nations ' mission in Haiti . Desroches and his crew say many Haitians are using broken pieces of buildings as construction material , including the metal rebar , or reinforcement bars , that critically strengthen concrete but now lie twisted and bent in the rubble . That makes the bars weak and potentially unsafe . But Haitians are turning to what 's available -- even though the materials might be deemed unsafe -- to rebuild structures that ultimately may be declared unsound . `` This is a problem , '' fellow engineer Jean-Philippe Simon said . `` These things can just collapse all over again . '' Indeed , the Digicel building where St. Claire is working contains massive cracks , is missing a two-story wall and leans over the area he 's cleaning up
Port-au-Prince , Haiti -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- In patches across the Haitian capital , many earthquake survivors are not waiting for an international clearing and rebuilding effort to begin . They are pulling out shovels , wood and cement to slowly repair and rebuild themselves . `` This is what we have to do now , '' Jean-Fritznel St. Claire said as he hammered away at huge , fallen slabs of a Digicel office building , breaking them into chunks to be shoveled into a truck and taken away . Digicel is a telecommunications company . St. Claire and three friends working with him at Digicel expected the company to pay them for their hard labor , but the group insists that they and others who stayed in the earthquake zone are eager to start clearing rubble and building what they can . `` The people who left -LSB- Port-au-Prince -RSB- have no hope , '' he said , his face dripping with sweat . `` We have hope . So we 're here . '' Elsewhere in Port-au-Prince , businesses and families repaired cinderblock walls and pounded new beams into fractured roofs . One work crew near the airport