An earth-shattering tragedy of epic proportions descended on Haiti in a matter of seconds last month. A country already weakened by economic disparity and political schisms over the years was brought to its knees after a 7.0 earthquake shook its foundation. In an instant the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince was devastated. In approximately one minute, from beginning to paralyzing end, the quake’s path left mass destruction and death acrosslarge swathes of the country.

What followed in the seconds, minutes, hours and days after is something that is hard to explain in photos or words. The scale of destruction, death and suffering was so grand that it is really difficult to wrap the mind around.

I’ve always looked at large-scale events like these as a big puzzle. Each is made up of many pieces to make a complete picture. The photos you see here are a very small part of a larger story. With the infrastructure of their city in rubble, thousands of survivors whose homes were destroyed or near crumbling decided that the only choice left would be to flee. One chance for escape came in the form of a large ship called Conformity. It sat quietly off the port’s edge waiting for the masses to ferry across on small, rickety boats to board the ship bound for Jeremie, Haiti. Some may have had friends or family waiting for them, others were going to land with nothing more than the opportunity to be any other place than the miserable scene they just left.

Gary Fabiano is an award-winning photojournalist who has spent the past 14 years traveling around the world photographing war, conflict and disaster. When he is not overseas, he is based in Washington, DC photographing the President of the United States on a daily basis for different global media outlets. His vision is in flux currently exploring the moving image as well as the still image to tell stories through filmmaking.