Haiti: tension as locals await aid
Updated on 16 January 2010
Tensions rise among Haitians waiting for aid and searching for missing relatives, as food and medical supplies began to trickle in, four days after the earthquake that the Haitian government says killed 200,000 people.
The country's government has given the United States control over its main airport to bring order to aid and food flights from around the world and speedy relief to the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was heading to Port-au-Prince on Saturday to meet with Haitian President Rene Preval at the airport.
Her plane was to bring in supplies and return with evacuated Americans. Clinton and US Agency for International Development Director Rajiv Shah plan to meet Haitian President Rene Preval and US relief workers on their one-day trip to Haiti, where the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake was estimated at up to 200,000 people.
US officials said Clinton's plane would be carrying several thousands dollars worth food and supplies for 140 US embassy staff in Haiti.
"We will also be conveying very directly and personally to the Haitian people our long-term unwavering support, solidarity and sympathies," Clinton said.
Trucks filled with dead bodies have been taking the corpses to mass graves outside the city, but thousands of bodies still are believed buried under rubble.
"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said.
He added: "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."
US rescuers worked through the night to dig out survivors from one collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people could have been trapped inside.
They were about to give up, when they were told a supermarket cashier had managed to phone someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.
Around 40,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, said Secretary of State for Public Safety Aramick Louis. If the casualty figures turn out to be accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday and flattened much of its capital would be one of the 10 deadliest ever.
The Health Minister Alex Larsen said most of Port-au-Prince would have to be rebuilt. Three days after the quake, gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors living in camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies, as aftershocks rippled through hilly areas.
Authorities said there was looting and growing anger among survivors despairing over the delay in life-saving help. Meanwhile, the US and other countries rushed to deliver food, water and medical supplies through a jammed airport, a smashed seaport and roads full of rubble.
Hungry locals fought each other for bags of foods handed out by UN trucks in downtown Port-au-Prince. A senior UN official warned that hunger will fuel trouble if aid does not arrive soon, although the law and order situation remains under control "for the time being."
"There have been some incidents where people were looting or fighting for food. They are desperate, they have been three days without food or any assistance," UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy said.
"We have to make sure that the situation doesn't unravel but for that we need very much to ensure that the assistance is coming as quickly as possible so that the people who are dying for food and medicine get them as soon as possible," he added.
The UN mission responsible for security in Haiti lost at least 36 of its 9,000 members when its headquarters collapsed. Its two top officials have not been accounted for.
"This is a historic disaster. We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory. It is like no other," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
The weakened Haitian government was in no better position to handle the crisis. The quake destroyed the presidential palace and knocked out communications and power.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive were living and working in the judicial police headquarters. "I do not have a home; I do not have a telephone. This is my palace now," the president said.
"We have to make sure there is gas available ... for the trucks collecting the bodies. The hospitals are full, they are overwhelmed, he continued." US President Barack Obama, who pledged an initial $100m in quake relief, promised the United States would do what it takes to save lives and get Haiti back on its feet.
"The scale of the devastation is extraordinary ... and the losses are heartbreaking," Obama said at the White House. Obama said the US, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Britain and other nations managed to fly in rescue and logistics personnel and supplies.
While some aid was getting in, the White House hoped improved logistics would accelerate the effort. Planes and ships arrived with rescue teams, search dogs, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and telecom teams, but faced congestion at the tiny airport.
Air traffic control will be handled by the US military from now on with support from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The USS Carl Vinson with 19 helicopters arrived off Haiti on Friday, opening a second significant channel to provide help.
Navy helicopters had begun taking water ashore and taking injured people to a field hospital near the airport. The US military aimed to have about 1,000 troops on the ground in Haiti on Friday and thousands more in ships offshore.
The total will reach 9,000 to 10,000 soldiers by Monday. The Pan American Health Organization said at least eight hospitals and health centres in Port-au-Prince had collapsed or sustained damage and were unable to function.
"We have no supplies. We need surgical gloves, antibiotics, antiseptic, disinfectant," said a doctor, Jean Dieudonne Occelien.
"We have nothing. Not even water. We have children out here with dry mouths and no water to give them."
Police were hardly seen on the streets and although some Brazilian UN peacekeepers were patrolling, there were stories of scavenging, looting and gun fighting in downtown Port-au-Prince on Friday.
Haitian authorities are rounding up troublemakers to stop looting from turning into wider violence, a senior security official said.
Haitian police inspector-general Jean-Yonel Trecile said: "We have arrested about 50 people" At one collapsed supermarket, people swarmed around the rubble to try to reach the food beneath it. Just outside the Cite Soleil slum, people crowded around a burst water pipe trying to drink from the pipe or fill buckets.
Survivors held out their arms to reporters touring the city, begging for food and water. Simon Schorno from the International Committee of the Red Cross has visited Port-au-Prince.
He said: "There is destruction in every neighbourhood. People are walking around, looking for food, for help. Many are wearing facemasks to protect themselves from the smell of decaying bodies. There are no tents, no plastic sheeting, no place to cook and no toilets."
