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Tens of thousands feared dead in Haiti quake

By Tom Brown and Andrew Cawthorne | Reuters

An injured child receives medical treatment after an earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 13 January 2010.File photo/Reuters/Eduardo Munoz/Haiti

Traumatised Haitians slept out in parks and streets Thursday, fearing aftershocks to the catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings and buried countless people.

Tens of thousands of people were feared dead and many were believed to be still trapped alive in the rubble of the major 7.0 magnitude quake that hit Haiti’s capital Tuesday.

There were no signs of organised operations to rescue those trapped in debris or remove bodies and doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, were ill-equipped to treat the injured.

Survivors feared returning to their precarious homes and slept in open areas where groups of women sang traditional religious songs in the dark and prayed for the dead.

“They sing because they want God to do something. They want God to help them. We all do,” said Hotel Villa Creole employee Dermene Duma, who lost four relatives.

Foreigners slept around the hotel’s pool and scores of injured Haitians lay outside the damaged hotel.

Bodies were visible all around the hilly city: under rubble, lying beside roads, being loaded into trucks. Scattered bodies were laid out on sidewalks, wrapped neatly in sheets and blankets. Voices cried out from the rubble.

Haitians wandered the chaotic, broken streets of Port-au-Prince, hoping desperately for assistance. Others clawed at chunks of concrete with bare hands and battered at slabs of debris with sledgehammers, trying to free those buried alive.

One young man yelled at reporters in English: “Too many people are dying. We need international help … no emergency, no food, no phone, no water, no nothing.”

Asked by a CNN reporter how many people had died, Haitian President Rene Preval replied, “I don’t know … I heard 50,000 … 30,000.” He did not say where the estimates came from.

Canadian aid worker Danielle Trepanier was rescued Wednesday, disoriented and in shock but otherwise with only minor scratches, after nearly 24 hours trapped in the debris of the collapsed house where she lived, aid group Doctors Without Borders said.

“Two locally recruited drivers were among those who put their own lives in danger to rescue Danielle, knowing from her intermittent cries for help that all was not lost,” the group said in a statement,

Nations around the world pitched in to help. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Thursday French planes would evacuate 60 injured people from its one-time colony and fly them to Martinique for treatment. Others will be flown out later, he told France Inter Radio.

The United Nations, whose five-story headquarters in Port-au-Prince was destroyed, said at least 16 members of its 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission had been killed. Brazil’s army said 14 of its soldiers were among the dead.

Mr Preval called the damage “unimaginable” and described stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped in the collapsed Parliament building.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” the Salvation Army’s director of disaster services in Haiti, Bob Poff, told CNN. “It’s so much devastation in a concentrated area. It’s going to take days, or weeks, to dig out.”

The quake’s epicenter was only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in and around the city, which was rocked by aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 magnitude.

Normal communications were cut off, roads were blocked by rubble and trees, electric power was interrupted and water was in short supply. The only lights visible in the city came from solar-powered traffic signals.

Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste said his organisation — accustomed to dealing with disaster in a country dogged by poverty, catastrophic natural disasters and political instability – was overwhelmed and out of medicine.

“There are too many people who need help. ... We lack equipment, we lack body bags,” he told Reuters.

UN peacekeeping personnel around the city seemed overwhelmed by the enormity of the recovery task ahead.

“We just don’t know what to do,” a Chilean peacekeeper said. “You can see how terrible the damage is. We have not been able to get into all the areas.”

US President Barack Obama spoke by phone to the UN secretary-general and the leaders of Brazil, Canada, Mexico and Chile about efforts to assist Haiti but was not able to contact Mr Preval, the White House said.

Mr Obama pledged swift, coordinated support and the Pentagon was sending an aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.

The United States, China and European states were sending reconnaissance and rescue teams, some with search dogs and heavy equipment, while other governments and aid groups offered tents, water purification units, food and telecoms teams.

The quake knocked out the Port-au-Prince airport control tower. The US Air Force sent a team to restore air traffic control to allow flights to evacuate the injured and bring in supplies.

Former US President Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, said more rescue teams and heavy equipment were needed.

“We need more helicopters,” Mr Clinton told CNN. “The most important thing is to get people into the [collapsed] buildings and find as many alive as possible.”

The US Coast Guard evacuated four critically injured Americans by helicopter to its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Coast Guard said Port-au-Prince port suffered massive damage and destruction, including its container crane.

Many hospitals were too badly damaged to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce.

One of the city’s best-known hotels, the Montana, collapsed, said tile factory owner Manuel Deheusch, adding that the hotel owner, his aunt, died in the rubble.

Mr Deheusch was worried about lawlessness. “All the policemen are busy rescuing and burying their own families,” he said. “They don’t have the time to patrol the streets.”

Copyright © 2010 Reuters

Published in Reuters website