200,000 feared dead in quake

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This article was published 19/01/2010 (5821 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The staggering scope of Haiti’s nightmare came into sharper focus Monday as authorities estimated 200,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless in the heart of this luckless land, where injured survivors still died in the streets, doctors pleaded for help and looters slashed at one another in the rubble.

The world pledged more money, food, medicine and police. But hour by hour the unmet needs of hundreds of thousands grew.

“Have we been abandoned? Where is the food?” shouted one man, Jean Michel Jeantet, in a downtown street.

The UN World Food Program said it expected to boost operations from feeding 67,000 people on Sunday to 97,000 on Monday. But it needs 100 million prepared meals over the next 30 days, and it appealed for more government donations.

European countries pledged more than a half-billion dollars in emergency and long-term aid, on top of at least $100 million promised earlier by the U.S. But the president of the neighbouring Dominican Republic said it will cost far more to finally rebuild the country: $10 billion.

Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered up broken walls to break into shops and take whatever they can find. Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decaying bodies.

At a collapsed and burning shop in the market area, youths used broken bottles, machetes and razors to battle for bottles of rum and police fired shots to break up the crowd.

“I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage,” said Jean-Pierre Junior, wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to protect his bottle of rum.

More than 200 Canadian Forces personnel are reported on the ground in Haiti and others are on the way.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said security is one of the key challenges in Haiti. Some of the 1,000 Canadian soldiers departing for Haiti over the next week will be tasked with ensuring the “humanitarian corridor” remains open, he said.

Twelve Canadians were confirmed dead and 849 were unaccounted for as of Monday afternoon, the Foreign Affairs department said on its website.

Two Canadian navy ships loaded with soldiers, equipment and supplies were arriving off Haiti. Canadian military aircraft have been flying in with supplies and personnel, and flying out with evacuees. Eleven flights had evacuated 987 Canadians from the quake zone.

While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of U.S. citizens, or people claiming to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the U.S. Embassy in hopes of getting a flight out of the country. A similar scene was outside the Canadian Embassy, where a large crowd gathered hoping Canada would accept refugees.

Haitian officials said about 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far.

So many people have lost homes that the World Food Program is planning a tent camp for 100,000 people — an instant city the size of Burbank, Calif. — on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, according to the agency’s country director, Myrta Kaulard.

In town, Bodies still lay in the street six days after the quake, but Haitians had made progress in hauling many away for burial or burning.

And crews were still working to rescue victims trapped under piles of concrete and debris.

“There are still people living” in collapsed buildings, UN humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told The Associated Press.

— AP, with files from CP