Haiti quake leaves 'thousands' dead
Updated on 13 January 2010
Haiti's president warns of a "catastrophe" after his country was hit by a 7.0 magnitude quake that has reduced much of the capital Port-au-Prince to rubble.
The Haitian President René Préval has warned thousands of people have been killed in the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in 200 years.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, he described the scale of the devastation, saying how he had stepped over dead bodies and heard cries from people trapped in the rubble of the country's Parliament.
"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," he said. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."
The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 5pm local time, was just ten miles from the capital, which has a population of one million.
Among the buildings destroyed were the presidential palace, a five-storey United Nations headquarters, the offices of the World Bank and a number of hotels.
But the quake - and a series of after-shocks measuring magnitude 5.9 - also brought down homes and hillside shanties across the region.
The UN said that a "large number" of its 9,000 personnel on the island are currently unaccounted for.
"The whole city is in darkness. You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go. There are people running, crying, screaming," Rachmani Domersant - an operations manager with the Food for the Poor charity - told Reuters.
Louis-Gerard Gilles, a doctor and former senator, who went to help survivors, told the Press Association that the hospitals could not handle all the victims.
'Unwavering support'
US President Barack Obama pledged "unwavering support" to help Haiti recover from the earthquake.
"We are just now beginning to learn the extent of the devastation, but the reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," he said.
"I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives," Obama said.
"The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States 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."
Earthquake a 'catastrophe'
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and is regularly wracked by storms and hurricanes.
Haiti's ambassador to Washington, Raymond Alcide Joseph, described the quake as a "catastrophe" and warned that the cost of the damage could run into billions.
He told CNN: "I am appealing to the world - especially to the United States - to do what they did for us back in 2008, when four hurricanes hit Haiti...I'm asking the Haitians who are abroad to work together and bring all the effort in a concerted manner to help those back home."
Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Venezuela are among other countries which are planning to offer aid. The Red Cross is sending a relief team from Geneva and the UN's World Food Programme is flying in two planes with
emergency food aid.
Gareth Owen, emergencies director at Save the Children, which has around 60 staff in Haiti, said: "We are very concerned about the high likelihood of a significant loss of life because Port-au-Prince is a very densely populated city and the earthquake epicentre was very close to it.
Initial reports from our people there from the immediate vicinity of where they are indicate that it looks very bad indeed."
Emergency Aid pledge
Gordon Brown told MPs at Question Time in the Commons that Britain would send emergency aid. "Because of the devastating earthquake overnight, Haiti has moved to the centre of the world's thoughts and the world's compassion," he said.
"The Government will respond with emergency aid in firefighters, emergency equipment and finance. And we'll give further support to help the people of Haiti recover from this devastating event."
The International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander, said that up to six million people could be affected by the quake. "By any measure, this is a terrible tragedy," he added.
He told MPs that a mobile fire and rescue team of 64 people with dogs and heavy-lifting equipment had gathered at Gatwick airport to fly out when the runway there had been cleared of snow. The possibility of an RAF flight was also being investigated, although aid flights may have to be diverted, as Port-au-Prince airport was believed to be unusable.
A team of specially-trained firefighters from West Sussex were among those preparing to fly out to help rescue victims. They are to be joined by doctors and medical staff, along with colleagues from six other fire and rescue services from around the country.
A French official told the AFP news agency that around 200 people were missing in the collapsed Hotel Montana, which is popular with tourists.
At least four Brazilian soldiers working on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti were reported killed and a large number are missing.
Geologists say that that the epicentre of the quake was relatively shallow - just six miles below ground - which was likely to have magnified the destruction. Up to three million people on the island are likely to have been "severely shaken" by the impact.
