PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — “Tell my daddy I love him!”
That was the message from 4-year-old Princess Coimin yesterday after she miraculously survived the collapse of her home during the massive earthquake that struck this city — news that her Brooklyn father had been waiting to hear for two agonizing days.
Princess was one of lucky ones to emerge from the wreckage that now is Haiti. Clutched in the arms of her terrified mother, Princess barely escaped the cascade of concrete that left her homeless, but alive to see another day.
Since Tuesday, her father, Pierre Coimin, had been agonizing over the fate of his precious daughter. Last night, he finally was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“I am so very happy right now,” Coimin, a taxi driver, said after The Post delivered the news — and showed him a picture of the girl.
“I’m glad to see she’s safe.”
Princess and her mother, Altagracia Manasse, 26, escaped the collapse with barely a scratch. When they reached the street, Princess had only one concern.
“She said she wanted me to call her father for her,” Manasse said.
The Post found the little girl playing in a vacant lot where other families in the devastated area of Nazon sought shelter.
“Tell my daddy I love him,” she said.
Manasse said she had been in the house with Princess, who was watching TV, when the earth started to shake.
“I held on to her as tight as I could,” the mother said.
A section of the home used by other tenants collapsed, killing a family of four, she said.
“Everything is gone,” Manasse said. “We don’t have anything to eat, we’re sleeping the streets under a tree. It’s a very bad situation.”
In the hours after the disaster, Coimin reached a friend in Port-au-Prince and traded texts in Creole.
“Kay la kraze,” his friend texted — the house had collapsed.
Coimin said he sent a message about his daughter but didn’t hear anything — until The Post found her.
“My first thought was they’re dead,” Coimin said. “Since you’re showing me this picture of her, I truly believe that she is alive. I’m glad she’s alive.”
Additional reporting by Christina Carrega in New York