‘Horrific’ devastation from Haiti quake

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34829978/ns/world_news-americas/?GT1=43001

`Horrific' devastation from Haiti quake

PM fears death toll above 100,000; food, water needed, aid worker says

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

updated 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Death was everywhere Wednesday in this devastated city

of 2 million. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of

women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies

began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets.

Moreover, untold numbers were still trapped after a powerful earthquake Tuesday

crushed thousands of structures — from schools and shacks to the National Palace

and the local U.N. headquarters.

As nations around the world mobilized to send help, Haitian Prime Minister

Jean-Max Bellerive told Reuters that he believed the casualties would be " in the

range of thousands of dead. "

Soon after, however, Bellerive told CNN that " I believe we are well over

100,000 " dead, while Haitian Sen. Youri Latortue said it could be 500,000.

President Rene Preval, for his part, told CNN that " up to now, I heard 50,000

.... 30,000 " dead.

But he did not say where the estimates came from, and none of the officials were

sure about the numbers. Other officials said it was too early to give an

accounting of the toll.

Aid workers reported widespread destruction and suffering.

" It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen, " Bob Poff, a Salvation Army worker

in Port-au-Prince, told MSNBC. " We have to get food and water " quickly, he said,

in describing conditions that range from stifling heat to numerous aftershocks.

" We're trying to stay alive. "

`Please take me out'

Sobbing and dazed people wandered the streets of Port-au-Prince, and voices

cried out from the rubble.

" Please take me out, I am dying. I have two children with me, " a woman told a

journalist from under a collapsed kindergarten.

The International Red Cross said some 3 million people may have been affected.

Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste said his organization was

overwhelmed. " There are too many people who need help ... We lack equipment, we

lack body bags, " he said Wednesday.

Doctors Without Borders said its three hospitals in Haiti were unusable and it

was treating the injured at temporary shelters.

" The reality of what we are seeing is severe traumas, head wounds, crushed

limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with the level of medical care we

currently have available with no infrastructure really to support it, " said

McPhun, an operations manager for the charity.

The head of the U.N. mission here was among the dead, Preval said.

The Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor ph Serge Miot, was also

killed.

Haiti's Radio Metropole quoted France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, as

saying hundreds of French nationals were missing.

According to the United Nations, the earthquake also collapsed the main prison

in Haiti's capital, with reports of escaped inmates.

Radio Metropole reported that U.N. forces scrambled to protect U.N. weapons from

looters ransacking the capital.

Bodies on the streets

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 singing hymns.

People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side

of the road. Passers-by 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.

The United States and other nations began organizing aid efforts, alerting

search teams and gathering supplies that will be badly needed in the Western

Hemisphere's poorest country.

" Haiti has moved to center of the world's thoughts and the world's compassion, "

said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The United Nations said Port-au-Prince's main airport was " fully operational "

and open to relief flights.

Preval told the Miami Herald that he had been stepping over dead bodies and

hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament

building, describing the scene as " unimaginable. "

" Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed.

Hospitals have collapsed,'' he said.

Préval issued an urgent appeal for aid.

Tens of thousands of people appear to have lost their homes and many perished in

collapsed buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.

Video obtained by the AP showed a huge dust cloud rising over Port-au-Prince

shortly after the quake as buildings collapsed.

" The hospitals cannot handle all these victims, " Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles, a

former senator, said as he helped survivors. " Haiti needs to pray. We all need

to pray together. "

'Worse than a war zone'

Speaking from Port-au-Prince, Thorp, Jr., told NBC's TODAY how he helped

dig through the rubble of a building to rescue his wife. She had been trapped

for 10 hours, he said.

Thorp said his spouse, who is a missionary in the country, was " doing OK " and

suffered only bruises. However, a colleague who had also been buried lost both

of her legs.

Thorp described conditions in Port-au-Prince as " worse than a war zone. "

Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated.

People screamed for help at a wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside

district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the

poor.

At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl stood atop a car, trying to

peer inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from rubble. She said

her family was inside.

" A school near here collapsed totally, " Petionville resident Ken Michel said

after surveying the damage. " We don't know if there were any children inside. "

He said many seemingly sturdy homes nearby were split apart.

..N. peacekeepers were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many

spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of the local U.N.

headquarters, where more than 100 people are missing.

The quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on Tuesday, centered 10 miles west of

Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS

geophysicist 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 within the first hours.

" Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken, " said Henry Bahn, a

U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that U.S. Embassy

personnel were " literally in the dark " Tuesday after power failed.

Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s humanitarian office, said it was

working with independent aid agency Telecoms Sans Frontieres to get phone lines

working again — a key element in organizing relief efforts.