MSNBC
written by NBC News, msnbc.com staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Wednesday January 13, 2010
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."
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 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.
U.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 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.
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