Desperate Haitians beg for quake aid
Updated on 15 January 2010
Despair begins to turn to anger in Haiti as survivors of the massive earthquake demand food, water and medicine while logistical problems hit the distribution of emergency relief.
A warning Sarah Smith's report contains some distressing images
People living in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince have spent a third night sleeping on streets strewn with rubble and decomposing bodies as governments across the world begin to mobilise aid supplies.
The Pan American Health Organisation says the number of people killed in Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude quake could now be between 50,000 to 100,000. The figures are far higher than previous estimates from the Haitian Red Cross.
More than a 1,000 corpses now lie outside the city's general hospital, with there being no attempt to identify them. Branches are being burned in streets across the city to disguise the growing stench from bodies.
Local radio stations have been broadcasting appeals for people to put bodies in the streets, so they can be picked up and taken to a mass grave.
Growing frustration
The United Nations said at least 10 per cent of housing in Port-au-Prince had been destroyed.
Channel 4 News found people wandering the streets with their possessions because their homes had been destroyed. Many are sleeping in parks or on waste ground.
There is no running water or electricity, communications are down and vital heavy-lifting equipment is still to reach the areas where it is most needed.
Many Haitians said they had still received nothing in aid, and there have been reports of sporadic looting as people scavenge for food and water.
In the slum of Cite Soleil, desperate people crowded around a burst water pipe and jostled to drink from the pipe or fill up buckets.
Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for Time magazine, said increasingly-desperate survivors has set up road blocks made from corpses in an attempt to get aid and rescue workers to stop in their areas. "They are starting to block the road with bodies," he told Reuters.
"It's getting ugly out there. People are fed up with getting no help.
Aid on its way
Governments across the world have rushed to send aid to Haiti, but huge logistical issues caused by the scale of devastation have delayed its distribution to people in need.
Port-au-Prince's airport is now under US control, with planes now arriving every 20 minutes.
The United States said the arrival of its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson with 19 helicopters on Friday would open a second significant channel to deliver help.
US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "Up until now we've been delivering assistance through a garden hose but now we are expanding that,"
However the port remained unusable.
