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Thousands
feared dead in Haiti quake
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DEVASTATION: An estimated 3
million people may have been affected by the 7.0 magnitude quake that struck on
Tuesday, with tens of thousands losing their homes
AP, PORT-AU-PRINCE
Thursday, Jan 14, 2010, Page 1
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People walk past
damaged buildings in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday after an earthquake measuring 7.0
rocked the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, toppling buildings and
causing widespread damage and panic, officials and witnesses said.
PHOTO: AFP
Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital yesterday
after the strongest earthquake to hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200
years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace
and the UN peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped.
Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent of destruction
from Tuesday afternoon's 7.0-magnitude tremor, but the devastation was so
complete that it seemed likely the death toll would run into the thousands.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he feared everyone inside the UN
headquarters in Haiti was killed when the building was destroyed by the
earthquake.
International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said an estimated 3 million
people may have been affected by the quake and that it would take a day or two
for a clear picture of the damage to emerge. Clouds of dust thrown up by falling
buildings choked Port-au-Prince for hours.
The US and other nations began organizing aid efforts, alerting search teams and
gathering supplies that will be badly needed in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's
poorest country. The international Red Cross and other aid groups announced
plans for major relief operations.
¡§Haiti has moved to the center of the world's thoughts and the world's
compassion,¡¨ British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
Associated Press journalists based in Port-au-Prince found the damage staggering
even for a country long accustomed to tragedy and disaster.
Aftershocks rattled the city as women covered in dust clawed out of debris,
wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered
in public squares long after nightfall, singing hymns.
People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side
of the road. Passersby lifted the sheets to see if a loved one was underneath.
Outside a crumbled building the bodies of five children and three adults lay in
a pile.
It was clear tens of thousands lost their homes and many perished in collapsed
buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.
¡§The hospitals cannot handle all these victims,¡¨ Louis-Gerard Gilles, a former
senator, said as he helped survivors.
¡§Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together,¡¨ he said.
An Associated Press videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed
for help in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many
diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the poor.
At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a
car, trying to peer inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from
rubble. She said her family was inside.
UN peacekeepers, many of whom are from Brazil, were distracted from aid efforts
by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of
their headquarters.
¡§It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi
Annabi, the United Nation's secretary-general's special envoy, and everyone with
him and around him, are dead,¡¨ Kouchner said, speaking on RTL radio.
At least four Brazilian soldiers were killed and five injured, Brazil's army
said. Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed
and 21 were injured.
A state newspaper in China said eight Chinese peacekeepers were known dead and
10 were missing ¡X though officials later said the information was not confirmed.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said late on Tuesday that the missing
included UN peacekeeping mission chief Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, who was in the
building when the quake struck. Some 9,000 peacekeepers have been in Haiti since
2004, including 1,266 Brazilians.
Much of the National Palace pancaked on itself, but Haitian Ambassador to Mexico
Robert Manuel said President Rene Preval and his wife survived the earthquake.
He had no details.
The quake struck at 4:53pm, center 15km west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of
only 8km, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770
in what is now Haiti.
Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years of
political instability the country has no real construction standards. In
November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of
Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were shoddily built and
unsafe in normal circumstances.
Tuesday's quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of
Hispaniola with Haiti, and in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in
either place.
With electricity knocked out in many places and phone service erratic, it was
nearly impossible for Haitian or foreign officials to get full details of the
devastation.
¡§Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken,¡¨ said Henry Bahn, a
US Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince. ¡§The sky is just
gray with dust.¡¨
In Washington, US Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley said that US
embassy personnel were ¡§literally in the dark¡¨ after power failed.
¡§They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see
a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by
debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this,¡¨ he said.
Elizabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN's humanitarian office, said it was
working with independent aid agency Telecoms Sans Frontieres to get phone lines
working again ¡X a key element in organizing relief efforts.
Venezuela's government said it would send a military plane with canned foods,
medicine and drinking water and provide 50 rescue workers. Mexico, which
suffered an earthquake in 1985 that killed some 10,000 people, planned to send
doctors, search and rescue dogs and infrastructure damage experts.
Italy said it was sending a C-130 cargo plane yesterday with a field hospital
and emergency medical personnel, as well as a team to assess aid needs. France
said 65 clearing specialists, with six sniffer dogs, and two doctors and two
nurses were leaving.
Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning Haitian-American author was unable to contact
relatives in Haiti. She sat with family and friends at her home in Miami,
looking for news on the Internet and watching TV news reports.
¡§You want to go there, but you just have to wait,¡¨ she said.
¡§Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale,
it's unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this,¡¨ she said.
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