Victim being carried away in the aftermath of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The quake has killed thousands in the impoverished mostly-African populated nation.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
The US is sending up to 3,500 soldiers and 2,200 marines to Haiti to help rescue efforts in the wake of the devastating earthquake.
President Barack Obama pledged one of the biggest relief efforts in recent US history and said Haiti would "not be forgotten" in its hour of need.
The search for survivors continues but rescuers lack heavy lifting equipment and many are using their bare hands.
The Red Cross estimates 45,000-50,000 people are dead and up to 3m affected.
BBC correspondents say the situation is increasingly desperate, with aid only trickling in.
Mr Obama confirmed that some US rescuers were already working on the ground in Haiti.
Speaking in Washington, he promised the country "every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy, and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country" following the disaster.
"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken, you will not be forgotten," he said.
However he warned it would take time for much-needed help to reach people.
Mr Obama also promised an immediate $100m for Haiti's relief effort and said that investment would grow over the coming year to aid long-term recovery.
Despite the promises of aid here there is still no sign of an organised relief effort.
Out in the streets of Port-au-Prince, the situation is now critical.
The voices that were being heard from inside the collapsed buildings have now fallen silent.
Haitians feel desperately alone, they are doing the best to fend for themselves but this is a place with no infrastructure.
People can only dig through buildings with their hands in an attempt to rescue any survivors.
The first 100-strong contingent from the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division is expected to arrive in Haiti by the end of Thursday, with several hundred more due by Friday.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will arrive on Thursday. The USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is also on its way.
The US forces will join Haitians and international search and rescue teams already on the ground.
Aid groups say it is a race against time to find people trapped under the rubble of the collapsed buildings.
Elisabeth Byrs, of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "The priority is to find survivors. We are working against the clock."
The head of Medecins du Monde, Olivier Bernard, told AFP news agency that aid had to arrive by Thursday evening.
"To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours," he said.
Doctor's assistant Jimitre Coquillon told Associated Press: "This is much worse than a hurricane. There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."
The BBC's Matthew Price in Port-au-Prince says Haiti is in massive need of food, water and medicine, as well as bulldozers and heavy lifting equipment.
But perhaps more than anything it needs someone to take charge here, our correspondent says. The government is fragile at the best of times and there is no sense it is able to do anything for now.
Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Authority said it had stopped civilian flights to Haiti for the moment at the Haitian government's request because there was not enough space on the ground for more planes and only limited fuel for them to leave.
The director of Port-au-Prince's general hospital said that by 1100 (1600 GMT) at least 1,500 bodies were already stacked inside and outside the morgue, with police continuing to bring more corpses on pick-up trucks, Reuters reports.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it could be days before even an estimate of the death toll from the earthquake could be made, but said he feared it would be "very high".
Up to 150 UN staff remain unaccounted for following the collapse of the UN headquarters building in Port-au-Prince and 36 UN military and police personnel are now confirmed dead.
On a note of hope, he recounted the survival of an Estonian UN official who was detected under 4m (13ft) of rubble after scratching noises were heard. He was dug out and is now in hospital.
A few US aid planes and a 50-strong Chinese rescue team with sniffer dogs have landed at the airport serving the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Cuba already had more than 300 doctors in Haiti before the earthquake and they have been treating the injured in field hospitals.
Other plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are on the way from the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations.
A British rescue team with heavy lifting gear and dogs has now arrived in Haiti.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The last 24 hours have been truly horrific for the people of Haiti. It's a catastrophe that's still unravelling, it's a tragedy beyond imagination."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled a trip to Asia to deal with the crisis. She said there were tens of thousands of casualties in Haiti and that tens of thousands of buildings had collapsed.
"This is going to be a long-term effort," she said.
Her husband, Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, told the Washington Post the quake was "one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas".
Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an international conference on rebuilding Haiti to be held with the help of nations including the US, Brazil and Canada.
"Haiti must not remain a battered country," he said.
The World Bank is funding $100m of emergency aid. The World Food Programme is working on supplying 15,000 tonnes of food and the Red Cross has begun a $10m appeal.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8459444.stm
Published: 2010/01/14 18:45:52 GMT
Haiti quake: Survivors struggle while awaiting aid
By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Desperately needed aid from around the world slowly made its way Thursday into Haiti, where a leadership vacuum left rescuers scrambling on their own to save the trapped and injured and get relief supplies into the capital.
President Barack Obama announced that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti, with thousands of troops and a broad array of civilian rescue workers flying or sailing in to aid the stricken country — backed by more than $100 million in relief funds.
To the Haitians, Obama promised: "You will not be forsaken."
The nascent flow of rescue workers showed some results: A newly arrived search team pulled a U.N. worker alive from the organization's collapsed headquarters. He stood, held up a fist in celebration, and was helped off to a hospital.
Planes carrying teams from China, France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport with searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies — with more promised from around the globe.
But it took six hours to unload a Chinese plane because the airport lacked the needed equipment — a hint of possible bottlenecks ahead as a global response brings a stream of aid flights to the airport, itself damaged by Tuesday's magnitude-7 earthquake.
Search and rescue squads from Virginia and Iceland arrived Wednesday and some groups — from Cuba's government and Doctors Without Borders — used staff already in the country to treat victims immediately after the quake.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "tens of thousands, we fear, are dead" and said United States and the world must do everything possible to help Haiti surmount its "cycle of hope and despair."
The U.S. dispatched troops and ships along with aid to Haiti, and other nations were joining the effort to help the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, where the international Red Cross estimated 3 million people — a third of the population — may need emergency relief.
Since Tuesday's earthquake, President Rene Preval has maintained his typical low profile, granting only a couple of media interviews and making few public appearances. He said his own residences were damaged in the quake and the Parliament building collapsed.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. had been in touch with Preval, and added: "We're not taking over Haiti. We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support."
There seemed to be little official presence in much of Port-au-Prince: Trucks carrying police and U.N. workers or equipment to clear away debris were often stuck in traffic on roads filled with pickup trucks, cars and pedestrians. At many collapsed buildings, neighbors and volunteers dug through rubble — often with bare hands — to free trapped residents without help from the government.
Yet the often-chaotic city was surprisingly calm, despite the devastation. Journalists heard little or no gunfire and saw no major violence.
Survivors set up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food scavenged from the rubble.
Bodies lay in the street, often covered by a white cloth, in the tropical heat. Some people dragged the dust-covered dead along the roads, trying to reach a hospital where they might leave them.
Others tried to carry dead relatives to nearby hills for impromptu burials, prompting Brazil's military — the biggest continent among U.N. peacekeepers — to warn the practice could lead to an epidemic. It said it is asking authorities to create a new cemetery.
The Brazilian military said it also was worried that bodies could be left too long because many Voodoo followers in Haiti do not allow the dead to be touched before all their rituals are concluded.
"This is much worse than a hurricane," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant working at a triage center set up in a hotel parking lot. "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."
The aid group Doctors Without Borders treated wounded at two hospitals that withstood the quake and set up tent clinics elsewhere to replace its damaged facilities. Cuba, which already had more than 300 doctors in Haiti, treated injured in field hospitals.
Obama promised Haitians an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, including the military and civilian emergency teams from across the U.S., adding that America —and the world—"stands with you."
Clinton said the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Carl Vinson "will be on the horizon soon, the Coast Guard has performed magnificently in helping to evacuate the injured, particularly American citizens."
The U.S. Army said a detachment of more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division was heading out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, looking for locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another 800 personnel on Friday.
That's in addition to some 2,200 Marines to be sent, as the military prepares to help with security, search and rescue missions and the delivery of humanitarian supplies. More than a half-dozen U.S. military ships also are expected to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, arriving later Thursday.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that 91 injured French nationals were evacuated to the Caribbean island of Martinique in three planes that had delivered aid and medical personnel.
There was no firm estimate on how many people died in the quake. Preval said Wednesday the toll could be in the thousands.
The acrid smell of drywall and ancient dust that filled the air immediately after the quake has faded, giving way to the usual aromas of Port-au-Prince — flowers and mango trees, with a hint of gasoline and urine.
Police officers carried the injured in their pickup trucks. Wisnel Occilus, a 24-year-old student, was wedged between two other survivors in a truck bed headed to a police station. He was in an English class when the quake struck and the building collapsed.
"The professor is dead. Some of the students are dead, too," said Occilus, who suspected he had several broken bones. "Everything hurts."
Other survivors carried injured to hospitals in wheelbarrows and on stretchers fashioned from doors.
Calls to emergency services weren't getting through because systems that connect different phone networks were still not working, said officials from a telecommunications provider in Haiti.
About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers cleared debris, directed traffic and maintained security in the capital. But law enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and would be ill-equipped to deal with major unrest. The U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping force sent patrols across the capital's streets while securing the airport, port and main buildings.
Looting began immediately after the quake, with people seen carrying food from collapsed buildings, but aid workers said disturbances were rare. Inmates were reported to have escaped from the damaged main prison in Port au Prince, said Elisabeth Byrs, a U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman in Geneva.
Port-au-Prince's ruined buildings fell on both the poor and the prominent: The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France.
Haitian Senate President Kelly Bastien was rescued from the collapsed Parliament building and taken to a hospital in the neighboring Dominican Republic. The president of Haiti's Citibank was also among the survivors being treated there, said Rafael Sanchez Espanol, director of the Homs Hospital in Santiago.
The State Department announced one American had died in Haiti, saying that at least 164 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the quake.
Coast Guard C-130 planes have airlifted 42 American officials and their families and another 72 private citizens to safety, Crowley said.
Another 370 Americans were awaiting flights out, he said. There were about 45,000 Americans living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it set up a Web site to help Haitians find missing loved ones. Robert Zimmerman, deputy head of the group's tracing unit, said people in Haiti and abroad can use the site to register names of missing relatives.
___
Associated Press contributors to this story: Jonathan Katz and Jennifer Kay in Port-au-Prince; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Frank Jordans and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Jenny Barchfield in Paris; Pauline Jelinek in Washington; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo.
US ups ante on Haitian assistance, commits $100M
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Thursday that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti as he continued to mobilize the U.S. response to the island's devastating earthquake.
As many as 5,500 U.S. infantry soldiers and Marines will be on the ground or on ships offshore by Monday, a Defense Department official said. More than a half dozen ships, including a hospital ship with 12 operating rooms, also were heading there Thursday or preparing to get under way, said spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Obama said the U.S. government is initially directing $100 million toward the relief effort, a figure he said would certainly grow over the year. "This is one of those moments that calls out for American leadership," he said.
Meanwhile, an administration official said Obama is reaching out to former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton for their assistance in the relief effort. It was Bush who tapped his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and Clinton, to assist with the tsunami response.
Their roles will be defined in the coming days, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because a formal announcement had not been made.
An official close to Bush confirmed that he was joining Clinton in the relief efforts.
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed the death of one American citizen, with three others known to be missing after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The agency did not immediately release the name of the victim. Crowley said the U.S. embassy has made contact with nearly 1,000 American citizens in Haiti, just a fraction of the estimated 45,000 Americans there.
Amid continuing efforts to assess the disaster's cost in lives and lost property, the first U.S. Army infantry troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina prepared to leave for Haiti with arrival expected later Thursday. That's a little over 100 troops that will find locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another roughly 800 personnel from the division on Friday and the full brigade of some 3,500 by the end of the weekend, Whitman said.
They come on top of some 2,200 Marines, also to arrive by the Sunday or Monday, as the military ramped up what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called "a full court press" to provide security, search and rescue and delivery of humanitarian supplies.
Obama said more than a half dozen U.S. military ships were also expected to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, arriving Friday, and the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort expected to arrive by Friday, Jan. 22.
Obama, evidently remembering the political cost to George W. Bush of a slow government response to Hurricane Katrina, warned preemptively that it would take hours "and in many cases days" to get the full U.S. relief contingent on the ground, because of the badly damaged roads, airport, port and communications.
"None of this will seem quick enough if you have a loved one who's trapped, if you're sleeping on the streets, if you can't feed your children," Obama said. "So today, you must know that help is arriving. Much, much more help is on the way."
As a start, the president said the U.S. military has secured the severely damaged airport in Port-au-Prince, preparing it to receive round-the-clock deliveries of heavy equipment and emergency supplies being flown in from the United States and countries around the world.
For Washington, managing its role in the crisis required a rush-mentality coupled with consideration of the implications of its role.
"The United States is providing a lot of the glue that is keeping people communicating and working together as we try to assert authority, reinstate the government and begin to do what governments have to do to rebuild and reconstruct this damaged country," Clinton said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends."
Sensitive to questions about whether the U.S. would need — or choose — to essentially take over Haiti's now almost-nonexistent civil and governmental structure, Crowley, her spokesman, stressed that U.S. troops sent to Haiti will be under U.S. command but there to augment and support the United Nations mission.
"We're not taking over Haiti," he said. "We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support and materiel and we're going to be there over the long term to help Haiti rebuild. But, the key is: we are maintaining constant contact with the Haitian government even given the difficult situation. What we're doing is following the priorities that the Haitian government has outlined for us."
Obama said Americans are being evacuated as quickly as possible. Crowley said 164 Americans have been airlifted out, including 42 non-essential officials and employee family members and 72 private citizens who were taken out on Coast Guard C-130s. Another 50 private citizens left on an Iceland Air flight. There are 360 Americans registered to leave on evacuation flights that will continue today.
"We will not rest until we account for our fellow Americans in harm's way," Obama said.
The president also said he has directed Vice President Joe Biden to travel to South Florida this weekend to meet with members of the Haitian-American community and responders.
___
Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty, Matthew Lee and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
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