Grieving Haiti still waiting for help
Updated on 18 January 2010
As aid arrives at Port-au-Prince airport by the sporadic planeload, there is little or no help reaching places like Petit Goave - one of the most remote areas hit by last Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake.
Warning: some people may find the accompanying footage distressing.
Thousands more US marines are on their way here to Haiti in a fresh effort to rush food and medical assistance to the people who need it the verty most.
Survivors are huddled in makeshift camps waiting for supplies. The UN has said for their own staff, even "minimal survival" is an issue.
Beyond the stricken capital of Port-au-Prince it is even more desperate. Many remote areas were almost totally destroyed.
One such area is Petit Goave where barely a single building remains standing. This is the town closest to the earthquake epicentre - there is still no aid here amid uncontrollable grief.
American Aaron Rooks, who lives nearby, is helping with the search by driving a digger through the rubble.
He told Channel 4 News: "It's pretty grim. At this point they don't want to handle the bodies, so I'm having to actually lift them out of the rubble with the bucket.
"After a few bodies, I go around and bury them in the cemetery."
For more Channel 4 News coverage of Haiti earthquake
- UN urges patience as Haiti frustrations rise
- Haiti’s streets transformed into camps
- Haiti: are the images too explicit?
- Survivors pulled from the rubble
- Bodies buried in mass graves
- Blog: mountains to climb behind Haiti’s mountains
US troops are protecting aid handouts and the United Nations has sought extra peacekeepers to bolster security as looters attack wrecked shops.
Hundreds of scavengers have swarmed over wrecked stores in downtown Port-au-Prince, seizing goods and fighting among themselves.
"We do not have the capacity to fix this situation. Haiti needs help... the Americans are welcome here. But where are they? We need them here on the street with us," said a policeman.
Some 2,200 Marines with heavy earth-moving equipment, medical aid and helicopters are due to arrive within hours.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has recommended that 1,500 police and 2,000 troops be added to the current 9,000-member UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
