calamitous earthquake reached 70,000, the flow of medical help and food
and water to survivors began showing signs of improvement Sunday,
though persistent logistical logjams at the capital’s airport —
complicated by sporadic, isolated violence — kept many residents of the
capital from receiving aid.
To ease demands in the capital,
residents relocate to areas untouched by the quake outside the
destroyed capital where they may be able to rely on relatives or better
fend for themselves. Many people were beginning to leave the city on
their own for the countryside to the north.
Prime Minister
as early as Wednesday, while relocating homeless people to spontaneous
camps established by residents within the metropolitan area where
distribution of aid can be focused and some measure of sanitation
provided.
“I don’t like the camp idea, but we have to regroup
people in places where we can give them water, food and permit them to
have a more decent life,” he said.
Experts, meanwhile, warned that the window for
finding additional survivors was closing fast, even as search and
rescue teams from
and elsewhere continued working around the clock. A total of 62 people,
most of them Haitian citizens, have been rescued since the earthquake
struck on
Tattered and hungry but clinging to hope, Haitians
gathered early Sunday to pray amid the ruins of churches. They knelt on
rocky debris, raised their arms in prayer, and sang aloud in the
roofless sanctuary of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de
Many wore face masks, shielding themselves from the
stench of decay and days with no running water. Others wore their
Sunday best.
“We have a lot to pray for. We’re not getting food
or water,” said Sully Dorisme. “Nobody has come talk to us. Somebody
should come talk to us to give us hope.”
Some desperate prayers were answered Sunday.
Three people were rescued from the Caribbean Market
early Sunday as rescue teams searched for more survivors at eight other
locations,
Callaghan said time was running out to find
survivors, but that the Haitian government would signal when the rescue
phase of operations would end.
One rescue on Sunday took place at the collapsed
U.N. mission headquarters in the capital, where rescuers freed a Danish
worker from the rubble about 15 minutes after an emotional visit from
U.N. Secretary-General
“I am here with a message of hope that help is on
the way,” Ban told a group of men and boys shouting that they needed
food, water and work, the
Ban said the U.N. is feeding 40,000 people, and
expects that figure to rise to 2 million within a month. He called the
quake “one of the most serious humanitarian crises in decades.”
The confirmed death toll, meanwhile, exceeded preliminary U.N. estimates of 50,000 dead and seemed certain to climb higher.
Bellerive said Sunday that government trucks had
collected 70,000 dead for mass burial, though that figure includes only
bodies collected in
While road builders turned mortuary workers collect the dead in
relief workers struggled to coordinate the arrival and distribution of
food, water, medicine and other supplies — sometimes in conditions of
deteriorating security.
More than two-thirds of people in
“We are now 100,000 around people receiving food
dailies when we have 350,000 families on the street,” Bellerive said.
“There is a big gap. I am preoccupied by the fact that we still have a
lot of food at the airport that is not getting to the population.”
There have been reports of sporadic violence and
unruly crowds desperate for supplies slowing the distribution of food,
water and medicine.
Shooting in a Petionville slum forced a convoy
carrying enough food for 40,000 people to turn around at noon, almost
as soon as it left
U.S. military officials said they were giving priority to distributing water in
U.N. officials began to distribute food at the
U.N.’s mission, told reporters that the next food distribution wouldn’t
take place until Monday as the agency still had to identify sites
secure enough to do so.
But U.S. officials said 9,000 U.N. security forces,
bolstered by arriving American military personnel, should keep a lid on
problems.
About 100 U.S troops with the 82nd Airborne are already on the ground in
To date, more than 600,000 humanitarian rations have been brought into
Additionally, a ship carrying 57,500 pounds of food arrived in
on Sunday, Callaghan said, though it was unclear how the supplies would
be unloaded and delivered since the port is out of commission.
—
(c) 2010, The Miami Herald.
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