Haiti: coming to terms with disaster
Updated on 14 January 2010
As the scale of destruction and loss slowly emerges, Haiti is a country coming to terms with a disaster. Rags Martel reports.
Dead bodies lie on the road. The survivors search desperately for loved ones.
A 13-year-old girl is trapped under rubble. Her feet the only part of her body still visible. But she is in pain.
Her brother listens to his sister's cry but there's little he can do
But after 18 hours she is forced out - alive.
"People were dying below me,” she says. “I could here them crying. But I wasn't scared."
But she is one of the lucky few. Many are still missing under collapsed buildings.
New pictures have emerged show the chaos immediately after the quake, the epicentre, just 10 miles from the capital Port-au-Prince.
From the air the devastation to this small island nation can be seen.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a press conference: "We are facing a disaster of as yet unknown magnitude."
Many hospitals in the capital have been flattened.
There is one hospital operational, 100 miles from Port-au-Prince. Patients have broken legs and head injuries.
Gareth Owen of Save The Children said: "Most of the public infrastructure has been completely destroyed.
"Many children were away from their families at the time of the quake, so they've been wandering round unaccompanied - and that's a big concern for Save The Children.
"We're really also very worried about areas outside the capital Port-au-Prince, because the reports that we're starting to get in now show that there's serious damage outside of the capital as well."
Planes with relief supplies have started to land, but the Red Cross says it has run out of medical supplies.
An estimated three million people have been affected by the quake. Aid agencies are describing a race against time to save the survivors.
