— Medical assistance, search and rescue teams, fresh water and food
began reaching more Haitians on Sunday as logistics improved at the
airport and international groups coordinated relief efforts.
Even as the likelihood of finding survivors grew slimmer, 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
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.
“The further away we get from the event,” he said, “the more difficult and challenging it is to find people alive.”
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.”
Prime Minister
70,000 dead for mass burial, though the figure includes only bodies
collected in
While mortuary teams collect the dead, relief
workers struggled to coordinate the arrival and distribution of food,
water, medicine and other supplies — sometimes in conditions of
deteriorating security.
“That’s not to say security is not an issue,” he
added. “But we do feel we have the resources to allow us to continue to
move forward.”
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
“We are trying to work hard to increase the number
of areas where individuals can go and receive food and supplies,” he
said. Callaghan said Haitian radio has been announcing relief
distribution sites.
At
airport, where the control tower and terminal have been condemned due
to damage, U.S. military officials said they have established
communication systems, and coordinated take-offs and departures to
maximize the arrival and distribution of food, water and medicine.
Col.
about 24 hours after the earthquake, “we’ve controlled approximately
600 take-offs and landings from this 10,000-foot strip that normally
operates three aircraft out of it on a daily basis.”
Elton said about 50 flights total have been diverted for lack of space for airplanes to land or park to unload their cargo.
“What we set up here would be similar to running a
major airport that only has a certain amount of terminals or certain
amount of cargo space, without real communications,” he said.
U.S. military personnel also have set up a medical
facility at the airport, where 24 people have been treated, including
16 American citizens with crush injuries, Elton said. More than 2,000
American citizens have been evacuated through the airport, he added.
Additionally, McDonough said, about 150 Haitian
orphans have been flown to the U.S. and another five were awaiting
transport on Sunday. He did not say where the orphans were taken.
As rescue and relief efforts continue, there have
been reports of sporadic violence and tumultuous 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, as soon
as it left
“We just learned there’s shooting in Peguyville (a
neighborhood of Petionville), and we had to come back,” said Alejandro
Lopez-Chicheri, spokesman for the
The food agency is now planning to get the trucks of high-energy biscuits as close to a slum as possible.
Aid workers said they plan to distribute the goods
at Place Boyer, a Petionville park-turned-tent-city, occupied by
hundreds of homeless people.
But getting supplies to people isolated by the earthquake’s damage was proving more difficult, and urgent.
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 as the U.N. mission in
As of Sunday morning, U.S. military officials said,
helicopters and other aircraft had delivered 130,000 daily rations and
70,000 bottles of water into
With drinking water in short supply, U.S. military officials said they were counting on two reverse osmosis water purifiers in
Tattered, hungry but clinging to hope, many Haitians gathered early Sunday to pray.
Amid the ruins of the
They kneeled on rocky debris, raised their arms in prayer, sang aloud in the roofless sanctuary of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de
Many wore face masks, shielding themselves from the stench of days with no running water. Others wore their Sunday best.
All came to renew a sense of hope.
“Last night the preacher told everybody on the
street to come pray. We have a lot to pray for. We’re not getting food
or water,” said Sully Dorisme, a deportee who lived in
“Nobody has come talk to us. Somebody should come talk to us to give us hope,” she said.
“I am praying for people to get help.”
The mass went on for several hours, with more people
gathering as the megaphone carried the priest’s voice over an otherwise
silence that was occasionally broken by the whir of helicopters.
“My message today was a message of faith,” said Fr.
Glandas Marie-Eric Toussaint. “We live with hope because they say
everything that happens happened because God wanted it. That is the
message. God is there to help rebuild. “I was very happy to see my
parishioners after four days,” he said.
“We need the force of God,” he said. “It’s hard, but we can do it.”
Asked if the government was taking care of his parishioners, Toussaint said “not yet.”
“The government is overwhelmed, but not just today — for many years.”
—
(c) 2010, The Miami Herald.
Visit
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
