Hope and despair for Haiti quake survivors
Hope and despair for Haiti earthquake survivors as aid arrives but not distributed
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Sunday, 17, Jan 2010 10:00
By Matthew Champion.
Five days after the earthquake that killed at least 50,000, left 300,000 homeless and three million in urgent need of aid, relief is still only getting to survivors in Haiti at a trickle.
There are 200 tonnes of aid supplies at damaged but workable Port-au-Prince airport, but distributing them to residents in the capital is presenting a major challenge to officials and aid workers.
Haitians are in urgent need of food, water, medicine and shelter after their country, already the poorest in the western hemisphere and reeling from a series of destructive hurricanes last year, was struck by a 7.0-magnitude quake on Tuesday.
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How you can help:
Click here for a list of charities involved in Haiti aid efforts or visit the Disasters Emergency Committee website to donate.
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Port-au-Prince's infrastructure was virtually wiped out by the quake, while up to half of all buildings were either destroyed or rendered unusable.
The scene at Leogane, west of the capital and the closest settlement to the quake's epicentre, has been described as "apocalyptic".
But amid the despair there are isolated incidents that bring hope to survivors and rescue workers in the affected areas.
On Sunday a woman was pulled alive from the rubble of a hotel in Port-au-Prince, her husband Reinhard Riedl telling the Associated Press news agency it was a "little miracle".
On Saturday 22 survivors in total were rescued by American workers, including a two-month old baby with broken ribs, a woman who had sent a text message from under the wreckage of her home and the head of the Port-au-Prince tax office.
An unprecedented international aid effort has been mobilised for what the United Nations has described as the worst disaster it has ever had to deal with.
Yesterday former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton unveiled a new fund for Americans to donate for relief efforts in Haiti, while the UN has made an urgent appeal for $562 million of aid.
But there are fears a lack of central control is stymieing the huge operation, although the US has assumed temporary control of Port-au-Prince airport.
Yesterday Haiti's interior minister said the true death-toll from Tuesday's quake may never be known, with up to 200,000 people feared dead.