More Buildings Crumble as New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into streets
Pastor Dale Morgan
More Buildings Crumble as New 6.1-quake hits Haiti, people flee into
streets*
By PAUL HAVEN and MICHELLE FAUL
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 20, 2010; 7:22 AM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- A powerful aftershock struck Haiti on
Wednesday, shaking and knocking down buildings and sending screaming
people running into the streets only eight days after the country's
capital was devastated by a major earthquake.
The magnitude-6.1 temblor was the largest aftershock yet to the
apocalyptic Jan. 12 quake that shattered Haiti's capital.
The new quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) about 35 miles (56 kilometers)
northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince and 13.7 miles (22
kilometers) below the surface.
Wails of terror rose from frightened survivors as the earth shuddered at
6:03 a.m. The U.S. Geologic Survey said the quake was centered about 35
miles (56 kilometers) northwest of Port-au-Prince and was 13.7 miles (22
kilometers) below the surface.
Last week's magnitude-7 quake killed an estimated 200,000 people in
Haiti, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million homeless, according to
the European Union Commission. A massive international aid effort has
been launched, but is struggling with overwhelming logistical problems.
Elsewhere in the capital, two women were pulled from a destroyed
university building. And near midnight Tuesday, a smiling and singing
26-year-old Lozama Hotteline was carried to safety from a collapsed
store in the Petionville neighborhood by the French aid group Rescuers
Without Borders.
Crews at the cathedral compound site Tuesday recovered the body of the
archbishop, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, who was killed in the Jan. 12
quake.
Authorities said close to 100 people had been pulled from wrecked
buildings by international search-and-rescue teams. Efforts continued,
with dozens of teams sifting through Port-au-Prince's crumbled homes and
buildings for signs of life.
But the good news was overshadowed by the frustrating fact that the
world still can't get enough food and water to the hungry and thirsty.
"We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don't know whose
responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon," said
Sophia Eltime, a 29-year-old mother of two who has been living under a
bedsheet with seven members of her extended family.
The World Food Program said more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations
had been distributed in Haiti by Tuesday, reaching only a fraction of
the 3 million people thought to be in desperate need.
The WFP said it needs to deliver 100 million ready-to-eat rations in the
next 30 days. Based on pledges from the United States, Italy and
Denmark, it has 16 million in the pipeline.
Even as U.S. troops landed in Seahawk helicopters Tuesday on the
manicured lawn of the ruined National Palace, the colossal efforts to
help Haiti were proving inadequate because of the scale of the disaster
and the limitations of the world's governments. Expectations exceeded
what money, will and military might have been able to achieve.
So far, international relief efforts have been unorganized, disjointed
and insufficient to satisfy the great need. Doctors Without Borders says
a plane carrying urgently needed surgical equipment and drugs has been
turned away five times, even though the agency received advance
authorization to land.
A statement from Partners in Health, co-founded by the deputy U.N. envoy
to Haiti, Dr. Paul Farmer, said the group's medical director estimated
20,000 people are dying each day who could be saved by surgery.
"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS NEED EMERGENCY SURGICAL CARE
NOW!!!!!" the group said.
The reasons are varied:
- Both national and international authorities suffered great losses in
the quake, taking out many of the leaders best suited to organize a
response.
- Woefully inadequate infrastructure and a near-complete failure in
telephone and Internet communications complicate efforts to reach
millions of people forced from homes turned into piles of rubble.
- Fears of looting and violence keep aid groups and governments from
moving as quickly as they'd like.
- Pre-existing poverty and malnutrition put some at risk even before the
quake hit.
Governments have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid, and thousands of tons
of food and medical supplies have been shipped. But much remains trapped
in warehouses, or diverted to the neighboring Dominican Republic. The
nonfunctioning seaport and impassable roads complicate efforts to get
aid to the people.
Aid is being turned back from the single-runway airport, where the U.S.
military has been criticized by some of poorly prioritizing flights. The
U.S. Air Force said it had raised the facility's daily capacity from 30
flights before the quake to 180 on Tuesday.
About 2,200 U.S. Marines established a beachhead west of Port-au-Prince
on Tuesday to help speed aid delivery, in addition to 9,000 Army
soldiers already on the ground. Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S.
military spokesman, said helicopters were ferrying aid from the airport
into Port-au-Prince and the nearby town of Jacmel as fast as they could.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that the military
will send a port-clearing ship with cranes aboard to Port-au-Prince. It
will be used to remove debris that is preventing many larger ships
carrying relief supplies from docking.
The U.N. was sending in reinforcements as well: The Security Council
voted Tuesday to add 2,000 peacekeepers to the 7,000 already in Haiti,
and 1,500 more police to the 2,100-strong international force.
"The floodgates for aid are starting to open," Matthews said at the
airport. "In the first few days, you're limited by manpower, but we're
starting to bring people in."
The WFP's Alain Jaffre said the U.N. agency was starting to find its
stride after distribution problems, and hoped to help 100,000 people by
Wednesday.
Hanging over the entire effort was an overwhelming fear among relief
officials that Haitians' desperation would boil over into violence.
"We've very concerned about the level of security we need around our
people when we're doing distributions," said Graham Tardif, who heads
disaster-relief efforts for the charity World Vision. The U.N., the U.S.
government and other organizations echoed such fears.
Occasionally, those fears have been borne out. Looters rampaged through
part of downtown Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, just four blocks from where
U.S. troops landed at the presidential palace.
Hundreds of looters fought over bolts of cloth and other goods with
broken bottles and clubs.
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Associated Press writers contributing include Paul Haven, Michael Melia,
Jonathan M. Katz, Michelle Faul and Vivian Sequera in Port-au-Prince;
medical writer Margie Mason in Hanoi, Vietnam; Charles J. Hanley in
Mexico City; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Edith M. Lederer at the
United Nations; and Seth Borenstein, Pauline Jelinek, Anne Flaherty and
Jennifer Loven in Washington.