Thousands feared dead as earthquake measuring 7.0 devastates Haiti

Thousands feared dead as earthquake measuring 7.0 devastates Haiti

*Death toll unknown, communication cut off
*200 feared dead in one hotel collapse alone
*Presidential palace in ruins
*Quake felt in Jamaica, Cuba and Dominican Republic

Thousands of people are feared dead in Haiti after a massive 7.0 earthquake devastated one of the world’s poorest countries yesterday.
Bloodstained bodies lay strewn in the street of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as the full horror of the disaster began to emerge in the early hours today.
Eyewitnesses said gravely ill Haitians were crying out from the rubble, pleading for doctors as night fell. With the country in chaos and facing still more damage from a series of aftershocks, their cries went mostly unheard.
One hotel collapse in Port-au-Prince is feared to have claimed the lives of more than 200 people.

The destruction is said to be staggering, even in an impoverished nation accustomed to tragedy and disaster. The National Palace is in ruins, a major hospital crumbled and tens of thousands of people are left homeless.


The headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping mission also collapsed and a large number of staff in the five-storey building are believed to have been killed.
Up to 250 people normally work at the UN headquarters and none had been rescued by late last night. It was unclear how many people were in their offices when the earthquake hit.
With communications disrupted, it may be days before the full death toll is known. The pictures tell a harrowing story, some of the first to emerge appeared on the Twitter networking site.

But Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told American colleagues that ‘there must be thousands of people dead.

The UK Government said it was 'deeply concerned' about the reported scale of the earthquake and was sending a team from the Department for International Development (DFID) to assess the humanitarian needs.
A DFID spokesman said: 'We are deeply concerned at the reported scale of the earthquake which has struck Haiti. It appears to have been severe, causing considerable damage and harm.
'We do not yet have a clear picture of needs from the Haitian authorities or from humanitarian agencies. We are monitoring the situation closely.
'Overnight we have mobilised a DFID humanitarian assessment team to fly to Haiti today. We stand ready to provide whatever humanitarian assistance may be required.'


The quake, the most powerful in the region for 200 years, was centred about ten miles west of the Haitian capital, a city of two million people, many of them living in flimsy shanty slums.
It struck at 4.53pm yesterday and was followed by as many as thirteen aftershocks, one of them as strong as 5.9 on the Richter scale, a sizeable earthquake in its own right.
The centre was also relatively shallow, less than ten miles below ground, raising the risk of damage.
Survivors held hands and sung hymns as they waited for help to come. But many people spent the night fighting for their lives.


I can hear very distressed people…a lot of distress, people wailing, trying to find loved ones trapped under the rubble,’ said Ian Rodgers, of Save the Children, who is in Port-au-Prince.
‘I couldn't even stand up, that's how bad it was,’ said Valerie Moliere, a 15-year-old resident of Port-au-Prince. ‘There's a lot of people in the street everywhere. Some are wounded.’
‘I just heard that right next to my neighborhood there's this pharmacy and this school that broke down and many people died,’ she added.
‘I don't know how powerful it was. But from what I felt, it was very powerful," said Carole Bastin, another resident. ‘And it lasted quite long because I could not walk, I was trying to leave the house, the building, I could not because everything was shaking around me. All the file cabinets were opening and all the things falling apart.’
In Washington, President Obama pledged to send aid. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added: ‘We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.’
The British government was urgently seeking information about the scale of the catastrophe.
‘We continue to monitor the situation and are urgently seeking information about the devastation caused by the quake and whether any British nationals have been affected,’ said a Foreign Office spokeswoman.

This is just awful, awful. I hope countries get aid to these people as soon as possible, there will be people alive still trapped under rubble.

This is looking really bad........hope they get help mobilised quick.There talking maybe 100000 dead !!

Haiti Quake: UK Pledges Millions For Aid
1:13pm UK, Thursday January 14, 2010

Hannah Thomas-Peter, Sky News Online

The UK Government has pledged millions of pounds to kick start the aid operation in Haiti, as British rescue teams join the relief effort.

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander announced a £6.2m package, but said the most important thing was technical assistance.

"The really pressing requirement in the hours ahead is the capability that we will be offering - that ability to offer cutting equipment and lifting equipment to get people out from the buildings that have collapsed around them."

More than 70 UK rescue specialists with dogs and heavy equipment set off from Gatwick Airport last night. They are expected on the ground shortly.
President Rene Garcia Preval fears more than 50,000 people are dead after the quake destroyed buildings across Haiti.

The United Nations says more than 100 of its staff are still missing.

Now there is a race to find survivors who are buried in the rubble, and provide aid for the millions left without food, water, shelter and medicine.

People are terrified of aftershocks, so many are sleeping in the open.
Haiti's infrastructure has been almost entirely destroyed, making the aid effort very difficult.

Speaking from Haiti, Plan International chairty spokesman Rezene Tesfamariam said the situation was desperate.

"I haven't seen this magnitude in my whole life. It is huge, so we need lots of international help," he said.

Oxfam's co-ordinator in Port au Prince Cedric Persu said: "There are bodies all over the city. People have nowhere to put them so they wrap them in sheets and cardboards in the hope that the authorities will pick them.

"People have also piled bodies in front of the city’s main hospitals."
Hilary Clinton has said America is working to get crews on the ground as fast as it can.

President Barack Obama promised "an all out rescue and humanitarian effort" to help the island overcome a "cruel and incomprehensible" tragedy.

British-based charities, including the Disaster Emergency Committee, also launched appeals to raise money to fund rescue efforts, as well as food, water, shelter and medicines for survivors.

ShelterBox, the UK-based international disaster relief charity, said it was sending 700 boxes containing a tent, stove and blankets to the area.

Founder Tom Henderson said: "With each day the need grows and we're doing all we can to get help to the thousands of families affected by this tragedy."

The quake hit the Caribbean island state shortly before 5pm local time (9.53pm GMT) on Tuesday, toppling hundreds of buildings in Port-au-Prince.

They ranged from shacks to a hospital, the UN headquarters and the presidential palace.

It is thought the quake - measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale - was the worst to strike the country for 120 years.

Seismologists said the impact of the quake was all the more destructive because its epicentre was "shallow", causing greater shaking on the surface of the ground.

The epicentre was within 10 miles of the centre of the densely-populated capital, where around one million people live.

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LIGHT A CANDLE: https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/light-a-candle-f22/for-the-people-of-haiti-t7272.htm

Desperation In Haiti As Aid Moves Slowly


Up to 200,000 people were killed when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the tiny nation on January 12.

Five days later security on the streets was a major issue - fear of robbers has been one of the factors slowing the delivery of aid.

At least two looters were today shot dead as police struggle to keep order five days after the devastating earthquake.

Some Haitians were taking the law into their own hands, lynching those accused of stealing.

Haiti's president said 3,500 US troops would be brought in to improve security.

Some reports said hundreds of trucks carrying aid and guarded by armed patrols were leaving the Port-au-Prince airport - but the streets were clogged with people forced to live and sleep out in the open.

But questions remain over who is in control of efforts to get aid and rescue equipment out of the airport.

Rescue workers have been forced to work with bare hands as lifting gear remains stuck at the airport.

The UN has denied they were having problems co-ordinating with the Americans.

"Everybody is on board. Everybody is working together to save lives and deliver aid as soon as possible," UN spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs told Sky News.

"We have a main operation centre close to the airport, together with the American people, together with the European Union, together with the emergency centre of the government."

Over the past few days, the airport has been log-jammed by aid flights that were not being effectively unloaded and turned around.

Paul Conneally, spokesman for the International Red Cross, said nobody was happy with the speed of aid delivery.

"We know what the needs are. We estimated at the beginning of this disaster that as [many] as three million people would be in need of assistance," he said.

"We probably have to revise that upwards. It's an enormous challenge.

"This is already the largest mobilisation the Red Cross/Red Crescent has ever had to one single county in our entire 150-year history."

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has arrived at Port-au-Prince for an update on the mission.

He said his organisation was feeding 40,000 people a day, but hoped to increase that to one million within two weeks.
Survivors were still being pulled from the rubble - but not many.

Three people were found amongst the debris of a supermarket, while another was found alive under the destroyed UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince.

However, it followed confirmation that British UN aid worker Frederick Wooldridge was one of the victims of the earthquake.

Another British UN worker, named as Ann Barnes, is still unaccounted for.

Those with the any energy left have rallied for traditional Sunday prayers - outdoors of course, because God's house, like hundreds of thousands of others, was destroyed.

"Why give thanks to God? Because we are here," Rev Eric Toussaint told a small crowd of survivors.

"We say, 'Thank you God.' What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now."


Warning: This video contains pictures of dead bodies.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Frustration-Grows-In-Haiti/Video/201001315527329?lpos=video_Article_Body_Copy_Region_0&lid=VIDEO_15527329_Frustration_Grows_In_Haiti

This whole thing is heartbreaking, They have not even recovered from the storms and now this. They simply don't have the infrastructure to cope with this and what little they did have is now gone. I hope the aid effort can at least help some of those who have survived before it is too late for them.

And 50 minutes ago, there was a new earthquake in Haiti, magnitude 6.1 Ritcher. Probably what was still up, with this second, came down.

Haiti Miracle As Trapped Man Found Alive

A man trapped under rubble on Haiti has been found alive, two weeks after an earthquake ravaged the island.
US troops pulled the 35-year-old free from the remains of a collapsed building in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Covered in dust and dressed only in underpants, he was carried out from the ruins in the downtown area of the city.

The man reportedly had a crushed leg and has been transported to a hospital.

"We don't know if he was there from the beginning or in one of the aftershocks he may have gone under," a US army specialist Andrew Pourak said.

"He got sent to the hospital, he's going to make it."

Some 133 people have been rescued from the ruins in Port-au-Prince since last week's devastating quake, which killed an estimated 150,000 people.

The most recent rescue came on Saturday, when search teams pulled a 25-year-old man out alive.

The latest rescue came as the US-led relief effort was focused on getting help to hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless, hungry and injured in the magnitude-7.0 quake.