Haiti News Update: Struggle to Keep Survivors Alive

Injured victim of the Haiti earthquake which registered at 7.0 magnitude in the Caribbean. Thousands may be dead from the affects of the disaster.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Struggle to keep Haiti survivors alive

By Benedict Mander in Port-au-Prince
Published: January 15 2010

By Friday afternoon the once-imposing Palace of Justice in central Port-au-Prince was little more than a scavenger dump. Flattened in Tuesday’s massive earthquake, people clambered over the ruins, picking over documents, family photographs, odd shoes, an antique hat and much more.

The stench of rotting flesh rising from the rubble into the hot Caribbean air supported people’s claims that it was also a mass grave.

“There must be hundreds of people beneath us,” said one onlooker, who used a stained rag to cover his nose to alleviate the stench. “Why is no one helping them?” he asked, as an apparently lifeless body metres away suddenly convulsed.

Officials admitted that the full scale of the Haiti disaster was unknown. The Haitian Red Cross estimated the death toll to be about 50,000. Others put it at double that. Haitian officials said they had buried 40,000 and expected to bury a further 100,000. The United Nations already buried 9,000 bodies.

Conditions at the makeshift hospital in the UN compound in Port-au-Prince were indicative of the desperate struggle to help the millions of victims. The ground was packed with camp beds, with many victims screaming, others unconscious.

“It’s like a civil war, it’s a disaster. About a fifth of the people here are going to die,” said John MacDonald, a surgeon forming part of a group flown in from the University of Miami. “We’re doing the minimal, it’s just a palliative – we just don’t have enough supplies or equipment”.

Talks were under way to turn the national football stadium into a temporary hospital.

Desperate people blocked streets with corpses in one part of Port-au-Prince, the capital, to demand relief following Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude quake that was thought to have killed up to 50,000 people and affected about one-third of the impoverished nation’s 9m population

A block away from the Palace of Justice, in the square opposite Haiti’s presidential palace, also in ruins, thousands of people left destitute by the most powerful earthquake to hit the former French colony since it was established in 1804 had erected a camp of makeshift shelters.

“Three of our family have died. We’ve lost everything, we have nothing, not even any money to buy food,” said a woman with a resigned expression on her face, cradling her baby Marie.

She explained that the people camped out across Port-au-Prince had either lost their homes, or were afraid to return to what remained should buildings collapse altogether.

Such scenes were mirrored across the city. Taller buildings were crumpled with floors lying on top of each other after the walls gave way, others were fatally cracked and leaning at oblique angles. Many more were just reduced to piles of rubble.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, said half the 3m population of the capital had no access to food, water, shelter or electricity. Food distribution had begun but supplies of high-energy biscuits and other food were as yet only reaching 8,000 people. “This is a drop in the bucket in the face of massive need,” he said, adding that relief workers would be feeding 1m survivors within 15 days, rising to 2m within a month.

Appealing for more emergency supplies of tents, medicines and medical personnel, Mr Ban said the UN would launch an appeal for $560m (€390m, £345m) of emergency aid to help finance the aid operation.

Latest estimates from the UN said more than $150m in cash from governments, individuals and organisations had been pledged, with a further $300m in commitments, including from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, called on the Paris Club of donor nations to accelerate the implementation of deals struck last year to cancel more than $110m of Haiti’s debts.

In addition to the refugee camps, the streets of Port-au-Prince were teeming with homeless Haitians, some apparently wondering aimlessly, others with their heads in their hands.

Still more chose to flee the city altogether to escape the chaos and pestilence, dragging suitcases, balancing large bags on their head or pushing wheelbarrows.

Mr Ban also stressed that despite the “chaotic situation”, “co-ordination has been maintained”.

David Wimhurst, the UN spokesman in Haiti, said that René Préval, the Haitian president, senior ministers, Edmond Mulet, the UN’s acting special representative to Haiti, and foreign ambassadors had set four key priorities at a meeting on Thursday.

These are re-establishing telecommunication links, burying bodies and moving refugees to more hygienic surroundings, delivering medical assistance and facilitating aid deliveries by waiving visas for aid workers.

On Friday afternoon there was little sign in much of Port-au-Prince that much aid was actually being distributed.

Many in the city were concerned that desperation was starting to set in, leaving the city increasingly dangerous.

“There is no more Haiti. It is finished,” said Jean Charles Willio, a young Haitian whose mother had lost both her legs after her home collapsed on top of her, while he was standing just outside. “Total destruction,” chimed his brother, Vladimir.

Standing outside the battered buildings of Port-au-Prince international airport, with the ceaseless roar of US military relief aircraft making conversation difficult, Steve, a UN engineer who declined to give his surname, conveyed in graphic terms the terrifying power of the Haiti earthquake.

“When the quake hit, this truck was bouncing up and down like a ping-pong ball,” he said, patting the bonnet of a chunky 4x4 all-terrain vehicle.

“When I turned to look at the shanty town [beside my house], it was gone.”

The co-ordination efforts for relief were hampered by the destruction of the headquarters of the UN’s 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission with at least 55 UN staff feared dead.

The US was leading the aid efforts. An aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, arrived off Port-au-Prince and up to 10,000 personnel were being deployed.

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, said he had no idea how long the troops would stay in theatre and how much the operation would cost.

“It looks to me like a fairly long-term undertaking for the international community and the US as part of that and as a principal player.”

Additional reporting by Andrew Jack in London, Daniel Dombey in Washington and Harvey Morris in New York

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.


Saturday, January 16, 2010
06:31 Mecca time, 03:31 GMT

Haiti: Up to 200,000 feared dead

Up to 200,000 people are feared to have been killed in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, will need to be rebuilt, authorities in the Caribbean country have said.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies. We anticipate there will be between 100,00 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, the country's interior minister, told the Reuters news agency on Friday.

If the casualty figures are accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

In another development on Friday, the United States was given "senior airfield authority" of Haiti's main airport under an agreement between the US state department and the Haitian government.

Aid flights

Lieutenant General Philip Breedlove, the US air force deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements, said on Friday that the agreement is in effect for the next 72 hours.

The agreement means the US will "schedule and control" flights in and out of the airport, deciding what planes can land and in what order.

Aid flights have been arriving at the airport faster than ground crews can unload them, prompting aviation authorities to restrict non-military flights for fear jets would run out of fuel while waiting to land.

The United States also plans to send 10,000 US troops to the earthquake-ravaged country to help distribute aid and prevent potential rioting among survivors, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Admiral Mike Mullen said the total US presence in and around the beleaguered country could rise beyond that figure as his military officers determine how much assistance may be needed in the days ahead.

The announcement came as the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) reported that the death toll from the earthquake may be as high as 50,000 to 100,000 people,

"A variety of sources are estimating the numbers [at] between 50,000 and 100,000," Jon Andrus of PAHO, the Americas arm of the World Health Organisation, said on Friday.

'Heartbreaking loss'

Barack Obama, the US president, said Tueday's earthquake had inflicted "heartbreaking" losses and pledged Washington would do what it takes to save lives and get the country back on its feet.

"The scale of the devastation is extraordinary ... and the losses are heartbreaking," Obama said at a news conference from the White House.

He also urged Americans to have patience with the relief operation, saying there would be "many difficult days ahead".

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said he would travel to Haiti "very soon" to show solidarity with earthquake victims and the staff of the devastated UN mission there.

Aid agencies are struggling to reach the up to three million of people affected by the earthquake which levelled buildings and buried thousands of people in the rubble.

At least 300,000 people were estimated to be homeless in Port-au-Prince, the capital, with one in 10 homes in the capital having collapsed, the UN said.

In a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Mullen, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said the primary goal is to distribute aid as quickly as possible "so that people don't, in their desperation, turn to violence".

He suggested that the US is aware of perceptions it could have too-high a profile in the ravaged country.

"I think that if we, particularly given the role that we will have in delivering food and water and medical help to people, my guess is the reaction will be one of relief at seeing Americans providing this kind of help," Gates said.

He said it was vital to get food and water into the country and called the security situation "pretty good," except for some isolated cases of scavenging for food and water.

Gates said the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti has primary responsibility for security in the capital.

Rescue and aid efforts have been been hampered by blocked roads, severed communications lines and the difficulties faced by relief agencies that have lost personnel and seen their office destroyed.

Aid limitations

Governments across the world have poured relief supplies and medical teams into the the country but huge logistical hurdles and the sheer scale of the destruction means aid is still not reaching thousands of victims.

PJ Crowley, a US state department spokesman, acknowledged the limitations of the initial US effort to get water, food and other emergency requirements into Haiti.

He likened the stream of aid thus far as flowing through a garden hose'' that must be widened to a "river".

The arrival off the Haitian coast of the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier laden with helicopters, essentially provides a "second airport" from which aid can be delivered to the stricken capital, Crowley said.

Mullen said the hospital ship USNS Comfort, with hundreds of medical professionals and medical support, should be off the Haitian coast by the end of next week.

Growing frustration

On the ground, there was growing frustration among the thousands of people living out on the streets of Port-au-Prince who had received little or no help.

Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the capital, said: "A lot of people have simply grown tired of waiting for those emergency workers to get to them.

"Thousands of people are streaming out of the city towards the provinces to try to find supplies of food and water, supplies that are running out in the city."

David Wimhurst, spokesman for the Brazilian-commanded UN peacekeeping force, said: "Unfortunately, they're slowly getting more angry and impatient.

"I fear, we are all aware that the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much, are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed."

Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for Time magazine, said he saw at least two roadblocks, formed with the bodies of earthquake victims and rocks, built by Haitians desperate for food and water.

"They are starting to block the roads with bodies. It's getting ugly out there. People are fed up with getting no help," he told the Reuters news agency.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies


Haiti relief work in high gear as rescue teams work round the clock

Haiti relief work teams from Brazil, the Philippines, France, the US, and elsewhere are rushing to reach victims of the 7.0 magnitude quake that struck Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12.

By Sara Miller Llana Staff Writer
posted January 15, 2010 at 1:48 pm EST
Port-au-Prince, Haiti —

Two French rescue workers are burrowed in a hole barely bigger than their bodies, methodically and tirelessly using picks, small shovels, and their hands to dig out victims they believe are buried in the remains of a hotel in Port-au-Prince.

“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” Benjamin Seewald calls out in French, trying to communicate with anyone who still might be below.

Silence. But the two men continue. So far, at least eight people have been rescued from here, as US, French, Chilean, Spanish, and Filipino paramedics, firefighters, doctors, and engineers scramble to rescue those still alive.

The city of Port-Au-Prince is in a mad rush to reach victims after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck this capital, burying entire parts of the city. The next day will be critical, as hydration becomes a life-threatening issue. But rescue workers are not giving up.

“These miracles do happen,” says Mark Stone, a member of the US Search & Rescue team from Fairfax, Va., here with USAID. “And it is that one in a million that makes us get up in the morning.”

But the Americans are not alone. Teams from across the world have been arriving in Haiti since the first hours after the quake. Many have not gotten any more than a few minutes of sleep, if any. The more than 20 countries here – in addition to the UN, World Bank, and numerous private groups – have already pledged aid to Haiti. Brazil is dispatching aircraft with food and water, Cuba has sent 30 doctors, and Israel dispatched a rescue staff of 240. At the Port-au-Prince airport, military planes from Venezuela and Colombia had landed, bringing in supplies.

The US military is sending some 9,000 troops to Haiti, though most of them will stay on ships until needed. Included in that number are some 2,200 marines.

“There is nothing that Haiti´s government can do,” says Francisco Morales, a Spanish firefighter who says he has not slept since his arrival the day after the quake. “They need our support.”
Many wait at the palace gardens

The needs in this city are enormous. Bodies lie on the side of the road. The earthquake left thousands homeless. Hundreds of families went straight to the gardens of the national palace, even though the building, the center of national control, had crumbled. Many say they were seeking government food and water and have been there ever since.

In the sweltering heat, in a place where the only "toilet" available is the ground, the stench is overpowering. Those who are waiting there rush toward foreign visitors, begging for water and food.

Ketty Vestaire, a single mother, is sleeping under a flimsy tarp, with just a blanket on the ground for her, her daughter, and her sister´s family. “We need services,” says Ms. Vestaire, who was cooking plain spaghetti over a stove. The government had distributed water the day before, but she says no doctors have visited and food is running out.

Many people in the gardens say they worry about safety, even stampedes, if desperation grows. Rescue workers say their attention will turn to survivors as soon as they reach all of those still trapped in the infrastructure, under walls and floors and in elevator shafts, of Port-au-Prince.

The American rescue effort here is being led by USAID, with three teams on the ground from Miami, Los Angeles, and Fairfax, Va., and two more en route. Each is comprised of about 72 firefighters, paramedics, and doctors. They have dogs and technical teams who can identify human sounds through concrete and earth. They have been to banks and police stations that fell.

The team from Fairfax spent an entire day tunneling through the walls of the Montana Hotel, which is popular among foreigners, with small picks and their bare hands. Estimates are that between 60 and 80 people may have died there. The rescuers crawled through tunnels to reach a woman who had been trapped and, finally, was rescued alive today.

Two men, a Haitian and an American, had been in separate elevators when the earthquake hit. Over the next two days, they talked each other through the anxiety of waiting. When rescuers finally reached them today, cutting through the metal sides of the elevator, the men wanted to meet.

The Haitian had not a single injury; the Americans some limb injuries. “It was a very emotionally moment,” says Mr. Stone, a firefighter from Fairfax.

While the success stories continue to emerge, so too do the tragedies. The eight-person team of Spanish firefighters arrived within 24 hours of the earthquake. They successfully got the receptionist out of the Montana Hotel alive, after an 18-hour dig, but two others, who were alive when they started, did not make it, including a 7-year-old boy. A 10-person team from the Chilean investigative police is here to identify bodies, says Alejandro Gonzalez, the head of their team, including one Chilean reported missing.

But rescuers are undaunted. Back in the tunnel, Mr. Seewald and Anthony Renaut continue to dig, little by little, flashlights lighting their way.