Haiti: survivors pulled from rubble
Updated on 17 January 2010
Five days after the earthquake, a few survivors are still being pulled from the wreckage of collapsed buildings in Haiti.
International rescue teams have already scoured around two-thirds of the worst affected areas and insist they have not given up hope.
British rescue workers say they have used hammers and chisels to free a woman trapped beneath a collapsed concrete building.
The rescue team from Rapid UK spent six hours digging the 39-year-old woman out from under the ruins of her home in Port-au-Prince.
Dan Cooke, a Wiltshire firefighter who is part of the rescue team working in the shattered country, said: "There was a woman yesterday under three or four floors of concrete squashed in with dead members of her family.
"That was a hammer and chisel job and it took six hours before the doctor assigned to our team took her to hospital.
"It's a great lift but people think it's like scoring a point or scoring a goal and it's not.
"The moment you've done that you look around and see there is something else to do.
"It doesn't change the fact this is a catastrophe."
Mr Cooke said his team was one of 47 working across the capital in dangerous conditions.
He said: "You hear gunfire, you see gangs of youths carrying machetes but to some extent that is part of the culture here.
"We are doing quite well. The UN security forces are attaching themselves to us and some teams have brought their own armed security.
"We have been working with other teams and local people and they have been fantastic.
"The conditions yesterday were very hot and dusty. There is always a smell of the dead and sometimes it is extremely potent.
"There are some very horrific scenes."
Mr Cooke said his team rescued two people yesterday and two the day before.
He said: "It is more than we would usually come across. The people are very tough as a nation and the weather conditions help to keep people alive but as the days go on the chances of people surviving fall massively.
"There are 1,700 rescue workers here and there is work for everyone which gives some sense of the scale of what has happened."
