Rescuers hunted for survivors Wednesday in the shattered landscape of
The nation’s president,
described the destruction as “unimaginable” and predicted that the
death toll in Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude magnitude-7 quake would reach
into the thousands. Preval told
“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has
collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” Preval
said. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in
them.”
Prime Minister
“I hope that’s not true,” Bellerive told
The head of the U.N. mission in
were reportedly among the dead as buildings — from including ramshackle
shanties, to schools and to the presidential palace — suffered
astonishing damage in a city of 2 million people. The U.N. reported
that the main prison also collapsed and that inmates had escaped.
The earthquake largely knocked out telephone
service, hobbling communications from the capital and making it
difficult for government officials and relief organizations to measure
the full scope of the devastation. Relief workers said it could take a
day or two to know how many of
President Obama promised that
“This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity we all share,” Obama said in televised remarks from the
on Wednesday morning. “With just a few hundred miles of ocean between
us,” he said, “Haitians are our neighbors in the Americas and here at
home. We have to be with them in their hour of need.”
U.S. officials said most of the damage appeared to be concentrated around
The U.S. military Wednesday deployed a 30-person team to assess the damage and help manage the response.
Gen.
to provide aid and help keep law and order. The military’s immediate
goals are to help restore telecommunications and get the city’s damaged
airport up and running, Fraser told reporters in
The airport is reported to be usable but the control tower was badly
damaged, prompting commercial airlines to cancel flights to and from
appealed early Wednesday for medical help and rescue specialists. He
said the country was in urgent need of a hospital ship and rescue
personnel.
Joseph said that many government ministry buildings
had collapsed and that the presidential palace, a graceful white French
colonial structure, was damaged.
“It’s a major catastrophe,” he told reporters at the
But Joseph said the “silver lining” was that the earthquake struck shortly before
The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot was found in the ruins of his office, the Rev.
The French foreign minister said the head of the U.N. mission in
“Many people are still trapped inside” the headquarters, U.N. Secretary-General
Ban called for an international relief effort, saying, “There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian emergency.”
Troops from the
mostly Brazilian, worked through the night Tuesday to try to reach
those trapped under the hotel rubble. Rescuers recovered several bodies
and badly injured people.
The U.S. is expected to take the lead in
international efforts to provide aid to victims. Pledges of help have
come from a number of governments, including
“For a country and a people who are no strangers to
hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and
incomprehensible,” Obama said. “Our thoughts and prayers are also with
the many Haitian Americans around our country who do not yet know the
fate of their families and loved ones back home.
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Obama said he had directed the administration “to
respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives.
The people of
in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to
deliver the humanitarian relief — the food, water and medicine — that
Haitians will need in the coming days.”
Hampered by downed telephone lines and power outages, reports of the devastation trickled out Tuesday.
“We are hearing of sheer devastation,”
“It’s horrible,” Stern said. “The worst earthquake in such a poor region. You are starting from behind the eight ball.”
Photos showed buildings in rubble and houses tumbled down ravines.
The poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere,
Already battered in recent years by storms, military coups and gang violence, much of
“I can hear very distressed people . . . . a lot of
distress, people wailing, trying to find loved ones trapped under the
rubble,”
A spokeswoman for Catholic Relief Services said the group’s representative in
described “total disaster and chaos” before the telephone line went
dead. Zelenka told colleagues that the Haitian capital was covered with
dust.
“He estimates there must be thousands of people dead,” the spokeswoman,
Fajardo said the group has stockpiles of food and
other goods to serve 5,000 families, but aid workers worry that relief
efforts could be hampered by poor road conditions and lack of security.
Ambassador Joseph said in
and that President Preval was safe but his headquarters were badly
damaged. He quoted a senior Haitian official as saying “buildings were
crumbling right and left” near the presidential palace.
U.S. Secretary of State
“We will be providing both civilian and military
disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. And our prayers are with
the people who have suffered, their families and their loved ones.”
“Within a minute of the quake ….. soil, dust and
smoke rose up over the city, a blanket that completely covered the city
and obscured it for about 12 minutes until the atmospheric conditions
dissipated the dust,”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
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