Haiti's desperate cry: 'We are dying'
Source: Agencies |
January 19, 2010, Tuesday
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TROOPS, doctors and aid workers flowed into Haiti yesterday even while hundreds of thousands of quake victims struggled to find a cup or water or a handful of food.
European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars: US$474 million in emergency and long-term aid coming from the European Union alone, and US$132 million promised by member states.
But help was still not reaching many victims of Tuesday's quake - choked back by transportation bottlenecks, bureaucratic confusion, fear of attacks on aid convoys, the collapse of local authority and the sheer scale of the need.
"We don't need military aid. What we need is food and shelter," one young man yelled at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his visit to Port-au-Prince on Sunday.
"We are dying," a woman told him.
Haitian riot police meanwhile fired tear gas to disperse crowds of looters in the capital city's downtown as several nearby shops burned.
"We've been ordered not to shoot at people unless completely necessary," said Pierre Roger, a Haitian police officer who spoke as yet another crowd of looters ran by. "We're too little, and these people are too desperate."
The US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, acknowledged that "the security situation is obviously not perfect."
Trying to leave
While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of US citizens, or people claiming to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the US Embassy in hopes of arranging a flight out of the country.
The Pan American Health Organization estimates 50,000 to 100,000 died in the magnitude-7.0 quake, and Haitian officials believe the number is higher.
Many survivors have lost their homes, and many live outside for fear unstable buildings could collapse in aftershocks.
On the streets, people were still dying, pregnant women were giving birth and the injured were showing up in wheelbarrows and on people's backs at hurriedly erected field hospitals.
Water began to reach more people around the capital and while fights broke out elsewhere, people formed lines to get supplies handed out by soldiers at a golf course. Still, with a blocked city port and relief groups claiming the US-run airport is being poorly managed, food and medicine are scarce. Anger mounted hourly over the slow pace of the assistance.
"White guys, get the hell out!" some survivors shouted in the city's Bel-Air slum, apparently frustrated at the sight of foreigners who were not delivering help.
One more day
At a destroyed nursing home, 71-year-old Jacqueline Thermiti said she could hold on for another day.
"Then if the foreigners don't come (with aid), it will be up to baby Jesus."
Five days after the quake struck, more survivors were freed from under piles of concrete and debris.
Rescuers pulled a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman from what had been the fourth floor of a now-collapsed supermarket on Sunday. Officials said they had survived for so long by eating food trapped along with them.
"She's responding, she's with it. So she's in very good shape for somebody who's been basically trapped for five days," said Captain Joseph Zahralban, a South Florida rescue team leader.
US crews with search dogs also rescued a 16-year-old Dominican girl trapped for five days in a three-story hotel that crumbled in downtown Port-au-Prince.
At the UN headquarters destroyed in the quake, rescuers lifted a Danish staff member alive from the ruins, just 15 minutes after Secretary-General Ban visited the site where UN mission chief Hedi Annabi and at least 39 other staff members were killed.
European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars: US$474 million in emergency and long-term aid coming from the European Union alone, and US$132 million promised by member states.
But help was still not reaching many victims of Tuesday's quake - choked back by transportation bottlenecks, bureaucratic confusion, fear of attacks on aid convoys, the collapse of local authority and the sheer scale of the need.
"We don't need military aid. What we need is food and shelter," one young man yelled at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his visit to Port-au-Prince on Sunday.
"We are dying," a woman told him.
Haitian riot police meanwhile fired tear gas to disperse crowds of looters in the capital city's downtown as several nearby shops burned.
"We've been ordered not to shoot at people unless completely necessary," said Pierre Roger, a Haitian police officer who spoke as yet another crowd of looters ran by. "We're too little, and these people are too desperate."
The US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, acknowledged that "the security situation is obviously not perfect."
Trying to leave
While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of US citizens, or people claiming to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the US Embassy in hopes of arranging a flight out of the country.
The Pan American Health Organization estimates 50,000 to 100,000 died in the magnitude-7.0 quake, and Haitian officials believe the number is higher.
Many survivors have lost their homes, and many live outside for fear unstable buildings could collapse in aftershocks.
On the streets, people were still dying, pregnant women were giving birth and the injured were showing up in wheelbarrows and on people's backs at hurriedly erected field hospitals.
Water began to reach more people around the capital and while fights broke out elsewhere, people formed lines to get supplies handed out by soldiers at a golf course. Still, with a blocked city port and relief groups claiming the US-run airport is being poorly managed, food and medicine are scarce. Anger mounted hourly over the slow pace of the assistance.
"White guys, get the hell out!" some survivors shouted in the city's Bel-Air slum, apparently frustrated at the sight of foreigners who were not delivering help.
One more day
At a destroyed nursing home, 71-year-old Jacqueline Thermiti said she could hold on for another day.
"Then if the foreigners don't come (with aid), it will be up to baby Jesus."
Five days after the quake struck, more survivors were freed from under piles of concrete and debris.
Rescuers pulled a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman from what had been the fourth floor of a now-collapsed supermarket on Sunday. Officials said they had survived for so long by eating food trapped along with them.
"She's responding, she's with it. So she's in very good shape for somebody who's been basically trapped for five days," said Captain Joseph Zahralban, a South Florida rescue team leader.
US crews with search dogs also rescued a 16-year-old Dominican girl trapped for five days in a three-story hotel that crumbled in downtown Port-au-Prince.
At the UN headquarters destroyed in the quake, rescuers lifted a Danish staff member alive from the ruins, just 15 minutes after Secretary-General Ban visited the site where UN mission chief Hedi Annabi and at least 39 other staff members were killed.
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