AT 4.53pm local time on January 12, Milltown man Conor Murphy was deep in a meeting at a hotel in the Haitian capital of Port au Prince. Seconds later he felt the ground shake, felt drops of water from a pool over 25 feet way and felt very, very insecure.

Just ten miles from the epicentre of a disaster of Biblical proportions, Conor Murphy had never felt further from the security of his mid Kerry home.

"I suppose you're so focused on trying to seek a safe spot that you don't really know what is happening until it is over," he recalls, almost a month after almost 200,000 people lost their lives on that fateful day. Conor had the good fortune to be sitting in a building that stood firm but poor infrastructure meant others were less fortunate.

"All that you could see downtown was a cloud of dust hanging over the entire city," he explains. "The violence of the shaking and the noise was unbelievable. The first thing I felt was drops of water coming from a pool that was at least 25 feet away, then an apartment block behind the hotel just collapsed. When it stopped people were just running."

Twenty four hours later Conor made his way through the rubble strewn capital to the UN logistics base where a makeshift hospital comprising of two huge tents had been set up, with medical aid administered by an Irish doctor.

"The drive through Port au Prince was shocking, even at that stage the bodies were piling up on the streets," he continues.

"Like any city or town you tend to know where you are by certain buildings or landmarks but most of those were now gone.

"I was informed that an Irish doctor was running the hospital with over 200 patients inside. It turned out that the doctor was a good friend named Louise Ivers, a Dublin girl, who works in Haiti with Partners in Health."

He says widespread chaos and a lack of medical personnel meant Louise soon had Conor working with her, changing dressings and bandaging the wounded.

"That night alone five people died due to a lack of medical supplies. I spent the next five days with Louise, a person who can only be described as a saint and a person who Ireland should be very proud of," he says.

With reports of sporadic violence and looting in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, aid agencies have since been warned to provide security with their supplies. In a country already registered as the western hemisphere's poorest, the UN, who had been on a peacekeeping mission since 2004, was left largely paralysed. The Haitian government met with a similar fate.

"There has been a lot of focus on the reactions of both the UN and the Haitian government and I think people need to consider what they lost also. One does have to question why it took the UN so long to announce their Plan B, however."

Meanwhile, he says that proper medium and long term planning is critical for a sustained recovery in a country that is already home to thousands of charities working with the poor.

"Put simply, there are too many of them here with no long term ambitions or targets for Haiti. In the last few weeks there has been far too many people arriving to 'help' in Haiti. It has created an even bigger problem in some cases because a lot of these disaster tourists, as I now call them, assume they can rely on the drained resources of existing charities."

And he is angered by the sight of countless foreigners driving around Port au Prince in pick-up trucks taking photographs.

He says SOH has concentrated its efforts on providing supplies rather than a hands-on approach and has so far assisted in sending over €750,000 in supplies.

"Our own reaction was not to get involved in the emergency humanitarian response because we don't have experience in that area. We would have caused somebody else a problem by getting involved," he explains.

"We concentrated on a longer term plan, on supporting other organisations in Haiti by utilising the network of Irish businesses to supply them with what they needed. Medical equipment was particularly needed so we partnered with Partners in Health and catered to their needs. The Beacon Medical Hospital in Dublin led by Michael Cullen drove this initiative."

The Milltown man gave special mention to Irish charity efforts in Haiti, stating that Concern has been doing "an incredible job" in leading the charge on food and water distributions and Haven who had been assisting with sanitation and will be building houses.

He also praised the chairman of the Haitian Digicel mobile phone networkl, Denis O'Brien. "With over 2,000 schools destroyed in Port au Prince he is leading the charge on education and formulating real plans for the rebuilding of markets."

Meanwhile, Conor has asked those who wish to donate money to the Haiti appeal to choose carefully. "Give to organisations who have a history here and plan to be here for the foreseeable future," he pleads.

If anybody wants to learn more about Haiti or wants to support the Soul of Haiti foundation log onto www.soulofhaiti.ie.