Wyclef Jean, Diddy Call For People To ‘Step Up’ Following Haiti Earthquake

Following the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti Tuesday afternoon, the death toll is still unclear (though estimates have it being in the thousands). But as the AP reports, one thing is certain: the strongest quake to hit the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation in 200 years could leave as many as a third of Haiti’s population of nine million people needing emergency aid.

“I cannot stress enough what a human disaster this is, and idle hands will only make this tragedy worse,” said Haitian-born rapper/producer Wyclef Jean in a statement. He also hit up Anderson Cooper 360 last night to urge prompt action to be taken in wake of the disaster. (Watch after the jump.)

“As we’re sitting here right now, there are people in the dark, that are dead,” Jean told Anderson Cooper. “My urgency right now is a cry of freedom saying we really need a state of emergency, like right now… I think the Haitians that are in America right now, we need to step up.”

Fellow rapper/producer Diddy took to his Twitter account last night and urged his followers to donate relief money to Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation organization.

“STATE OF EMERGENCY!!! RT PLEASE!!! ‎​Earthquake relief for Haiti please text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 or go to www.yele.org RT PLS!!!” went Diddy’s tweet.

But maybe the Yele site wasn’t equipped to handle the volume of traffic it received overnight, as it now appears to either be down or moving very slowly.