Rescue and Aid
More UN peacekeepers expected for troubled Haiti
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-18 20:03
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Looters fight for goods taken from a destroyed store in downtown Port-au-Prince January 17, 2010. Tensions rise among Haitians waiting for aid, as food and medical supplies began to trickle in, four days after the earthquake that the Haitian government says killed 200,000 people. [Agencies] |
"White guys, get the hell out!" some survivors shouted in the city's Bel-Air slum, apparently frustrated at the sight of foreigners in their streets who were not delivering help.
"Then if the foreigners don't come (with aid)," said Jacqueline Thermiti, "it will be up to baby Jesus."
Improbably, five days after the magnitude-7.0 quake struck, more survivors were freed from under piles of concrete and debris.
At a collapsed supermarket, rescuers late Sunday pulled a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman from what had been its fourth floor. Officials said both were in stable condition, able to survive 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 Capt. Joseph Zahralban, a South Florida rescue team leader.
Earlier in the day, a policeman reported three other people had been rescued from market's rubble. Emergency teams said they were still hopeful of finding more possible survivors in other parts of the damaged store.
US teams with search dogs also found and rescued a 16-year-old Dominican girl trapped for five days in a small, three-story hotel that crumbled in downtown Port-au-Prince.
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A looter holds a knife as he fights for products after Tuesday's earthquake in Port-au-Prince January 16, 2010. [Agencies] |
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.
UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said it was possible people could survive until Monday, adding to the 70 lives saved by 1,700 rescue workers since Tuesday's quake,
"There are still people living" in collapsed buildings, she told The Associated Press. "Hope continues."
The UN World Food Program was on target to reach more than 60,000 people Sunday, up from 40,000 on Saturday, spokesman David Orr said. UN officials said they must raise daily deliveries to 2 million within a month.
But the aid group CARE had yet to set a plan for distributing 38 tons of high-energy biscuits in outlying areas of Haiti, CARE spokesman Brian Feagans said Sunday. He did not say why.
The Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders said bluntly: "There is little sign of significant aid distribution."
The aid group complained of skewed priorities and a supply bottleneck at the US-controlled airport. Doctors Without Borders spokesman Jason Cone said the US military needed "to be clear on its prioritization of medical supplies and equipment."
The on-the-ground US commander in Haiti, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, acknowledged the bottleneck problem. "We're working aggressively to open up other ways to get in here," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Part of that will be fixing Port-au-Prince's harbor, rendered useless for incoming aid because of quake damage. The White House said Sunday that the US Coast Guard ship Oak had arrived and would use heavy cranes and other equipment to make the port functional.
Some 2,000 Marines also were to arrive off Haiti on Monday, Keen said, reinforcing 1,000 US troops on the ground. Former President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, was expected to visit the country and meet with President Rene Preval. Also Monday, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he planned to ask the Security Council to temporarily increase the UN's force. There are currently about 7,000 UN military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti.
During Mass outside the ruins of the Port-Au-Prince cathedral, the Rev. Eric Toussaint preached of thanksgiving to a small congregation of old women and other haggard survivors assembled under the open sky.
"Why give thanks to God? Because we are here," Toussaint said. "What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now."
Others said their faith had been shattered.
"How could He do this to us?," cried Remi Polevard, who said his five children lie beneath in the rubble of a home near St. Gerard University. "There is no God."
