Haiti anger at quake chaos
Updated on 15 January 2010
Hundreds of thousands of survivors of Tuesday's massive Haiti earthquake have endured a third night without shelter - many with untreated injuries - and with growing anger at delays in the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The Red Cross says
it believes that up to 50,000 people were killed by the quake, but around three
million more - around a third of the country's population - were either injured
or left homeless.
Aid workers fear that the number of deaths will
rise inexorably in the coming days unless they can clear the logjam that has
built up at the airport and along blocked and damaged roads.
Aid flights have been turned away and forced to land in the
neighbouring Dominican Republic because of delays in unloading equipment from
those planes that have got through. The country's port is unuseable because of
damaged wharfs and debris in the water.
And the destruction of the United Nations headquarters and many
government buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, have left a vacuum in
leadership and co-ordination.
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the
United Nations Office for the
Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs - which oversees the international
response to major disasters - has described the situation as "a logistical
nightmare".
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. Food and water supplies are running down and eight of the capital's major hospitals are severely damaged. The Haitian Red Cross said it had run out of body bags.
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. "Thery 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."
The organiser of one of the makeshift tented camps that have sprung up around
the city, Valery Louis, said: "These people have no water, no food, no medicine.
Nobody is helping us."
The country's main prison was among the
buildings destroyed, allowing inmates to break free and there are increasing
reports of looting and violence. More than 9,000 United Nations peacekeeping
troops were already in the country, but they have been overwhelmed by the
enormity of the task and have also had to help fellow UN workers trapped in the
ruins of their building as well as their own families.
The massive
US aid effort is getting into gear, with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, due to
arrive off the coast of Haiti later today to form a "floating airport" for
helicopters that can be used to ferry in supplies. An American hospital ship and
around five and a half thousand troops are also on their way, but may not arrive
before Monday.
The first British team of 42 rescue workers are
already on the ground in Port-au-Prince and are due to be joined by a second
group of 27 with two sniffer dogs, who are travelling over from Santa
Domingo.
The Disasters
Emergency Committee is launching its Haiti Appeal tonight. Its chief
executive, Brendan Gormley, said the quake had "ripped apart the lives of
millions of people in one of the poorest nations of the world."
He
added: "It is clear that, after the immediate rescue attempt is completed, we
will be left with ongoing humanitarian challenges."