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Officials fear death toll could reach 250,000; food, water needed, aid
worker says updated 7:48 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 13, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Spending a second night on the streets, dazed
earthquake survivors wandered past dead bodies Wednesday, crying for
loved ones or seeking help. Shocked and overwhelmed Officials fear the
death toll could reach as high as 250,000.
Death was everywhere in this devastated city of 2 million. Bodies of
tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the
street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to
gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets. Moreover, untold numbers were still trapped after the magnitude-7
earthquake Tuesday crushed thousands of structures — from schools and
shacks to the local U.N. headquarters and the National Palace, where a
dome tilted ominously above the manicured grounds. Voices cried out from the rubble. "Please take me out, I am dying. I have two children with me," a woman
told a journalist from under a collapsed kindergarten. The first cargo planes with food, water, medical supplies, shelter and
sniffer dogs headed to the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation as
charities on the ground warned they were running out of supplies, food
and water. At a triage center improvised in a hotel parking lot, people with cuts,
broken bones and crushed ribs moaned under tent-like covers fashioned
from bloody sheets. "I can't take it any more. My back hurts too much," said Alex Georges,
28, who was still waiting for treatment a day after the school he was in
collapsed and killed 11 classmates. A body lay a few feet away. "There's no water," said doctors' assistant Jimitre Coquillon. "There's
nothing. Thirsty people are going to die." 'Most horrific thing' "It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen," Bob Poff, a Salvation
Army worker in Port-au-Prince, told MSNBC. "We have to get food and
water" quickly, he said, in describing conditions that range from
stifling heat to numerous aftershocks. "We're trying to stay alive." Haiti's leaders struggled to comprehend the extent of the catastrophe —
the worst earthquake to hit the country in 200 years — even as
aftershocks still reverberated. "It's incredible," President Jean Preval told CNN. "A lot of houses
destroyed, hospitals, schools, personal homes. A lot of people in the
street dead. ... I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the
event and how to manage." As nations around the world mobilized to send help, Preval said at least
thousands of people were probably killed. Haitian Sen. Youri Latortue
said 500,000 could be dead, but conceded that nobody really knows. "Let's say that it's too early to give a number," Preval said. Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste said his organization
was overwhelmed. "There are too many people who need help ... We lack
equipment, we lack body bags," he said Wednesday. Doctors Without Borders said its three hospitals in Haiti were unusable
and it was treating the injured at temporary shelters. "The reality of what we are seeing is severe traumas, head wounds,
crushed limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with the level of
medical care we currently have available with no infrastructure really
to support it," said Paul McPhun, an operations manager for the charity. Haiti seems especially prone to catastrophe — from natural disasters
like hurricanes, storms, floods and mudslides to crushing poverty,
unstable governments, poor building standards and low literacy rates. Digging with bare hands In Petionville, next to the capital, people used sledgehammers and their
bare hands to dig through a collapsed commercial center, tossing aside
mattresses and office supplies. More than a dozen cars were entombed,
including a U.N. truck. Nearby, about 200 survivors, including many children, huddled in a
theater parking lot using sheets to rig makeshift tents and shield
themselves from the sun. Looting began almost as quickly as the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on
Tuesday and people were seen carrying food from collapsed buildings.
Many lugged what they could salvage and stacked it around them as they
slept in streets and parks. People streamed into the Haitian countryside, where wooden and
cinderblock shacks showed little sign of damage. Many balanced suitcases
and other belongings on their heads. Ambulances and U.N. trucks raced in
the opposite direction, toward Port-au-Prince. About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers cleared debris,
directed traffic and maintained security in the capital. But law
enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and would be
ill-equipped to deal with major unrest. The international Red Cross said a third of the country's 9 million
people may need emergency aid, a burden that would test any nation and a
crushing catastrophe for impoverished Haiti. The United States and other nations began organizing aid efforts,
alerting search teams and gathering supplies that will be badly needed
in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince's main airport was "fully
operational" and open to relief flights. Port-au-Prince's ruined buildings fell on both the poor and the
prominent: The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in
the ruins of his office, according to the Rev. Pierre Le Beller at
Miot's order, the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France. Senate President Kelly Bastien was among those trapped alive inside the
Parliament building, and a day later had stopped responding to rescuers'
cries, Latortue said. Even the main prison in the capital fell down, "and there are reports of
escaped inmates," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in
Geneva. Haiti's Radio Metropole quoted France's foreign minister, Bernard
Kouchner, as saying hundreds of French nationals were missing. Preval told the Miami Herald that he had been stepping over dead bodies
and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national
Parliament building, describing the scene as "unimaginable." "Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have
collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,'' he said. Video obtained by the AP showed a huge dust cloud rising over
Port-au-Prince shortly after the quake as buildings collapsed. "The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," Dr. Louis-Gerard
Gilles, a former senator, said as he helped survivors. "Haiti needs to
pray. We all need to pray together." Speaking from Port-au-Prince, Frank Thorp, Jr., told NBC's TODAY how he
helped dig through the rubble of a building to rescue his wife. She had
been trapped for 10 hours, he said. Thorp said his spouse, who is a missionary in the country, was "doing
OK" and suffered only bruises. However, a colleague who had also been
buried lost both of her legs. Thorp described conditions in Port-au-Prince as "worse than a war zone." Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated. People screamed for help at a wrecked hospital in Petionville, a
hillside district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as
well as the poor. At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl stood atop a car,
trying to peer inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from
rubble. She said her family was inside. "A school near here collapsed totally," Petionville resident Ken Michel
said after surveying the damage. "We don't know if there were any
children inside." He said many seemingly sturdy homes nearby were split
apart. U.N. peacekeepers were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy:
Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of the local
U.N. headquarters, where more than 100 people are missing. The quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on Tuesday, centered 10 miles west of
Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey
said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest
earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years
of political instability the country has no real construction standards.
In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the
mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were
shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated
hundreds of victims. Venezuela's government said it would send a military plane with canned
foods, medicine and drinking water and provide 50 rescue workers.
Mexico, which suffered an earthquake in 1985 that killed some 10,000
people, planned to send doctors, search and rescue dogs and
infrastructure damage experts. Italy said it was sending a C-130 cargo plane Wednesday with a field
hospital and emergency medical personnel as well as a team to assess aid
needs. France said 65 clearing specialists, with six sniffer dogs, and
two doctors and two nurses were leaving. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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