HELP IS on its way, President Barack Obama promised the people of Haiti yesterday as a massive global relief operation geared up amid estimates that up to 50,000 people died in the earthquake that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Tuesday.
Mr Obama said the Haitian relief effort was “a top priority” for the US, and an opportunity for Washington to show leadership. Haiti’s main airport is now operating around the clock, but is unable to cope with the influx of personnel and supplies.
Aircraft yesterday circled for an hour and a half, and some had to return to Florida and other staging grounds rather than run out of petrol. Because of the delays on flights, some relief groups and governments routed aid through the neighbouring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
“It will take hours – in many cases days – to get all of our people and resources on the ground,” Mr Obama said. “None of this will seem quick enough if you have a loved one who’s trapped, if you’re sleeping on the streets, if you can’t feed your children.” Relief experts noted that the 72-hour “window of opportunity” beyond which most victims of earthquakes do not survive in rubble was rapidly closing.
Eyewitness reports from Port-au-Prince told of people wandering the streets wrapped in sheets, adding to the eerie, netherworld feel of the capital. People pile rubble around themselves when they sleep in the streets, so they won’t be run over by cars. Most are too afraid to enter buildings that could still collapse. The dead and wounded are transported in wheelbarrows, on doors used as stretchers and in the back of pick-up trucks. Pools of green sewage are forming in the broken streets.
About 1,500 corpses were piled up outside the main hospital and it was reported that bodies lay on many of the capital’s streets.
Victor Jackson, a co-ordinator with the Haitian Red Cross, told Reuters he believed up to 50,000 people were killed in the quake. President René Préval, who is sleeping at the airport because his palace lies in ruins, said he has heard the death toll could be between 30,000 and 50,000. A day earlier, Mr Préval said he believed 100,000 were dead. The Haitian leader also spoke of the risk of epidemics, as thousands of bodies lie outside, covered by a piece of plastic or a sheet.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton cancelled her trip to Asia to oversee the relief effort, and promised that the US will help Haiti over the long term. Referring to the danger of violence, Mrs Clinton said: “In the wake of disasters like this, people do get desperate. If you have a starving baby in your arms, you’re going to find food wherever you can.” The American Red Cross has raised $3 million (€2 million) in donations for Haiti from people sending text messages on their mobile phones.
Mr Obama pledged $100 million for the American relief effort and said the US will “partner” the Haitian government, Haitian-Americans, the UN and other nations and organisations.
The Irish Government has announced it is deploying a team from the Rapid Reaction Corps of the Government programme Irish Aid to assess needs on the ground. Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power said UN agencies in Haiti have asked Ireland for “a small number of highly specialised personnel” in the fields of logistics, telecommunications and sanitation.
A US military assessment team was the first to arrive in Haiti, aboard a C-130 transport aircraft. The US said it was sending 3,500 soldiers and 300 medical personnel to help with disaster relief and security, with the first of those to arrive yesterday.
The Pentagon was also sending the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 marines.
An Air China aircraft carrying a search and rescue crew, medics, seismological experts and supplies also landed in Port-au-Prince yesterday. A British relief team was headed to the capital via Santo Domingo.
Rescue teams and supplies arrive from around the world: pages 10 11; Poverty-stricken country least able to sustain blow: Opinion, page 14