The earthquake in Haiti has created a humanitarian disaster of immense complexity that brought a massive humanitarian response. However, integrating human rights concerns into the relief operations is essential to protecting the well-being of Haitian victims, especially women, children, and other vulnerable groups.
The vast majority of settlements sheltering earthquake victims have zero security, Human Rights Watch learned while visiting 15 camps in Port au Prince and Jacmel. Even though these settlements hold between 5,000 and 35,000 people each, no one has formal responsibility for what happens inside or around them, and security officers are conspicuously absent.
The majority of these camps have no proper latrines or areas to wash. Women wanting privacy to bathe seek out isolated, dark areas, leaving them vulnerable to attack. Most camps are completely dark after sunset, making them unsafe.
Two women told of us of gang rapes and of being raped when returning from bathing in hidden areas of the camp. One girl was raped in her tent. But with no one in authority running the camps, they had nowhere to report the assaults. No one is investigating these cases.
Many children live in camps without their families. While other organizations are looking closely into this issue, trafficking should be a serious concern as cars and trucks stream - unchecked -- from Haiti into the Dominican Republic after dark.
Conditions for everyone living in the settlements, where many shelters are made of sticks and pieces of cloth, will only worsen once the rainy season starts in March. Camps built on hillsides are in danger of being washed away by heavy rains and mudslides. Only 23,000 proper tents have been distributed, according to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance. At least 1.2 million people are homeless.
Access to food is another major problem. The World Food Program's two-week "food surge" did not reach some of the largest camps. Some of the issues include the location of distribution points far from the camps, the absence of security arrangements that would allow on-site distributions, and the reliance on local officials - some of whom, Human Rights Watch found, were involved in selling or otherwise interfering with fair distribution of the food coupons.
A key step in stemming most of these problems will be building safe camps that have basic sanitation and can protect people from bad weather. To establish these camps, the Haitian government needs land. But most of the land around Port au Prince is privately owned. That means that the government needs either to expropriate or to buy the land to allow the international community to create proper camps. These settlements need to be built quickly so that they can provide shelter during the rainy season.
Acquiring the land lawfully and building proper, well-monitored camps can keep the squalid and unsafe conditions experienced by hundreds of thousands of quake survivors from becoming deadly as rain arrives.
By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Dana Hedgpeth and Theola Labbé-DeBose Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, January 21, 2010; A13
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Haitians pushed and clawed onto rusty boats and dented buses by the thousands Wednesday, hoping to escape a capital city newly unnerved by the strongest aftershock since the Jan. 12 earthquake.
The death toll now stands at 75,000 and is rising, according to President René Préval. A sign that appeared outside an open mass grave at the city's largest cemetery read: "Please. The hole is filled. It can't take more bodies."
About 200,000 people are injured, 1 million are displaced and half the buildings in Port-au-Prince are destroyed, according to the Haitian Directorate for Civic Protection. A new Haitian government estimate says homeless people have congregated in more than 320 fetid encampments across the capital, where pigs and dogs scavenge in the same rotting garbage piles as naked children and their parents.
United Nations officials said an exact toll of the dead and injured may never be known because the powerful earthquake was so widespread and destroyed hospitals and morgues, which traditionally track such figures.
The scale of the tragedy has overwhelmed a country ill-prepared to cope with disaster and outstripped the capacity of international relief agencies, prompting an exodus of poor Haitians, who have no guarantee of finding shelter in the villages and cities outside Port-au-Prince.
At a ferry wharf in Port-au-Prince's Boulva slum, Manie Felix -- a 26-year-old mother of three -- hoped to travel to Haiti's Jeremie region, abounding with fruit trees. But she had no money to pay the inflated passage rate, which was equivalent to $15. "I have all these kids. I have no idea what to do," she said. Felix was asleep at the port when Haiti was shaken by Wednesday's aftershock, which registered at a magnitude of 5.9 and collapsed buildings in the capital.
Outside the U.S. Embassy, Josue Pierre's 4-year-old daughter looked up at him when the earth started shaking and said, "Daddy, Daddy, are we going to die?" The tremor made the 33-year-old Haitian American all the more eager to get permission to fly to Boston to meet his wife. "Something else is going to happen here," he said. "It is just too scary to stay. It is time to go away."
Rayhold Phanore, a pastor, said he saw a roof collapse on two neighbors. "You think everything is done and then it keeps shaking," said Phanore, a Haitian American who is hoping to take his 4-year-old daughter to Orlando, where he has family.
Nearby, in the Cite Soleil slum, where authorities say 3,000 people died and 15,000 were injured, police girded for the reemergence of gangs that held sway there before the quake. Police chief Azistude Rosemond returned to work after losing his wife, daughter and parents in the quake. Now he must cope without 17 of his 67 officers and is worried about escapees from a collapsed jail.
"They were in a tough fight before the earthquake," Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, the top commander of U.S. military forces here, said after touring the slum with Ambassador Kenneth Merten. "The quake is like a kick in the teeth for them."
The city has seen little violence, despite persistent fears that shortages of food, water and shelter will spark unrest. Still, looting remains a problem. Haitian SWAT teams patrolled the government buildings around the National Palace to keep away looters, said police Cmdr. Simon Francois.
"The looters are looking for the government safes, computers, anything that works, and even things that don't," Francois said. "The people are stressed, and that makes it more difficult for us to protect and serve."
Many business owners have refused to reopen because they fear being overrun by desperate quake victims. But several banks opened Wednesday; long lines formed and crowds grew agitated, mirroring the emotions after the morning aftershock.
The aftershock's damage wasn't limited to Port-au-Prince -- the United Nations said that an undetermined number of people were injured and that buildings collapsed in Jacmel, a seaside city known for its international film festival. While crews spread across Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to assess damage, the USNS Comfort arrived but stayed far from shore. Navy and Army divers plunged into the waters beneath the capital's central pier to gauge whether it could withstand cargo and masses of people.
The damaged and sorely inadequate infrastructure is further delaying the arrival of desperately needed relief supplies, and putting more pressure on Port-au-Prince's congested airport, which is now handling 100 landings a day -- four times the normal rate, according to the United Nations.
The air-traffic control tower was damaged in the initial quake, and there is just one runway to handle dozens of relief agency and military flights from around the world. "More people wanted to come in here than there's space, and they wanted to come in quickly," said U.S. Air Force Col. Ben McMullen, deputy commander for the Special Operations unit tasked with improving airport operations. The airport "was running on a first come, first serve" basis initially, he said.
To unload the planes, it was mostly "a bunch of good strong backs," he said. Since then, more forklifts and loaders have arrived, and the military is now requiring flight plans, hoping that will end the hours-long holding patterns imposed early on. A U.N. official said it is unclear when commercial flights might resume.
The Haitian government has signed an agreement giving the United States formal control of the airport, so U.S. officials have had to referee disputes between relief flights. On Saturday, a French plane carrying a portable hospital was diverted because the landing space was full.
"Everybody thinks their plane is a priority," said Maj. Nathan Miller, who helps coordinate air operations. Lionel Isaac, the airport's director, said that crowding has been a problem and that planes need to do a better job of alerting authorities about cargoes and arrival times. "They don't do it," he said. "They just fly in."
Once the planes are on the runway, they are Air Force Tech. Sgt. Adrian Jezierski's problem. "They tell me the size, and I figure out where to park it," said Jezierski, who is among those directing planes. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle."
Staff writers William Booth, Mary Beth Sheridan and Scott Wilson in Port-au-Prince and Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
By Peter Whoriskey Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 17, 2010; A16
MIAMI -- In this city's Little Haiti, anxious text messages relay the news.
From under the earthquake's rubble, a relative punches into a cellphone: "I'm trapped." Survivors running out of water plead for someone to help. Often the messages are just inquiries: Has anyone heard from this friend, that family member?
The earthquake in Haiti has dismayed television viewers across the United States. But many people here are unnerved not just by their closeness to the site of the disaster but also by the difficulty of responding before it's too late. Bottlenecks have kept many supplies and rescuers from getting to Haiti and, more personally, prevented Haitian Americans from answering requests from stricken relatives.
In a demonstration of concern, Vice President Biden made two stops in Little Haiti on Saturday, promising government and church leaders that help was on the way for the residents of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
"On behalf of the administration, our hearts ache for you," Biden told about 30 officials gathered Saturday morning at the Little Haiti Cultural Center.
Marie Etienne, a nursing professor at Miami Dade College, attended one meeting. She has been frustrated because a group of hundreds of Haitian American nurses that she organized has been unable to reach the island.
"It's heartbreaking," she said. "We see things on TV, and we feel powerless."
The sense of danger that comes with each passing hour is acute. Over the past few days, this is what Rasha Cameau, 40, the manager of a Haitian cultural center here, has learned via text messages from her sister:
Her elderly parents, their house flattened, have no food.
Her cousin, who had sent the text message alerting people that he was buried in the rubble, died before he could be rescued.
"I keep telling my parents that help is coming so they won't lose hope," she said, tearing up.
Her husband has volunteered to join rescue efforts, and she is helping through the city of Miami, her employer.
But, she said, "My dad keeps saying: 'We are going to die here.' "
The urge to assist, nonetheless, has spurred numerous efforts.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Miami is pressing for clearance to bring Haitian children orphaned by the earthquake into the United States in an operation similar to one that brought thousands of Cuban children to this country after the 1959 revolution. The Cuban operation was known as Pedro Pan; the prospective Haitian one has been dubbed Pierre Pan. On Saturday, church officials asked Biden to help clear the way for the flights.
With some predicting another migratory exodus from Haiti, Miami-Dade County is reviewing what it calls a mass migration plan. So far, there have been no signs of organized attempts to flee Haiti.
Grass-roots donations have surged. Every Miami-Dade library, fire station and police district station is being organized to handle the outpouring. Employees at the Walgreens in Little Haiti, where six of 30 workers have yet to hear from relatives in Haiti, have set up a $5 carwash operation to raise money. Corporate donations have funded a call center where Haitian Americans can call home. Community activists are planning to hold a public wake in Little Haiti Sunday night.
Local Haitian radio personality Piman Bouk (Haitian Creole for "hot pepper") said the need to help is felt intensely. Bouk, a Christian, has been on the radio advising people to "forget about the voodoo."
"So many people are in the ground, in the rubble," he said in front of his restaurant in Little Haiti. "They don't eat. They don't drink. They are suffering. If they are still alive, we must say, 'Thanks be to God.' "
"The entire community is emotionally attached to Haiti, and it's been rough," said Rep. Kendrick B. Meek (D-Fla.), who has convened meetings in the area to coordinate relief efforts. "People really want to do something."
Haitian American employees form the base of a number of big companies in the region, Meek said, many of them at hotels, prompting firms to offer help.
In a blog post last week, Marriott International Chairman Bill Marriott, writing from the Harbor Beach Marriott in Fort Lauderdale, said that more than a third of the "associates" at the hotel are Haitian and have been affected by the disaster.
"They are struggling with trying to find out what has happened to their families and loved ones," Marriott wrote. "They have a group get-together for prayer and song every morning and our hearts go out to them all."
Community leaders and others say they hope that the attention to the poverty-stricken nation will last. On his visit Saturday, Biden promised that it would.
He said the Obama administration views earthquake relief as a possibly years-long effort.
"We are there to rescue," Biden told the community leaders. "We are there to secure. We are there to rebuild.
"This president does not view this as a humanitarian mission that is going to have a life cycle of a month. This will be on our radar screen -- dead-center -- long after it is off of the CNN crawl at the bottom of the screen."
On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. The ICT4Peace Foundation presents the following resources as those that contain, or in turn point to, resources including datasets, emergency numbers, helplines and updates, vital to aid efforts.
Port au Prince destruction by the New York Times (excellent visualisation of pre and post earthquake imagery)
Ways to help
The ICT4Peace Foundation is, unless specifically noted, not in any way associated with or part of the initiatives mentioned below. We cannot therefore vouch for their work, but have pointed to reliable sources such as Google who have first flagged the initiatives.
The United States is home to about 535,000 Haitian immigrants — the largest concentration in any single country of Haitians abroad. As the country descended into chaos following the collapse of the Duvalier dictatorship in the late 1980s, Haitians began arriving in the United States in large numbers. Many received humanitarian protection. Between 1980 and 2000, the Haitian-born population residing in the United States more than quadrupled from 92,000 to 419,000. The Haitian immigrant population in the United States has continued to grow since 2000, although at a slower rate. Recent natural disasters in Central America and the Caribbean have pushed large numbers of migrants to the United States and in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, emigration pressures from the devastated country are likely to grow.
The Haitian diaspora in the United States has also traditionally played an important role in assisting Haiti recover from natural disasters. More than half of all Haitian immigrants resided in just two states, Florida and New York, although they are also concentrated in New Jersey and Massachusetts (for more information on immigrants by state, please see the ACS/Census Data tool on the MPI Data Hub).
This spotlight focuses on Haitian immigrants in the United States, examining the population's size, geographic distribution, and socioeconomic characteristics using data from the US Census Bureau's 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) and 2000 Decennial Census, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) for 2008.
Click on the bullet points below for more information:
There were 535,000 foreign born from Haiti residing in the United States in 2008. There were 534,969 foreign born from Haiti residing in the United States in 2008, making up 1.4 percent of all immigrants. The population has more than quintupled since 1980, when the decennial census counted 92,395 Haitian immigrants, and nearly 20-fold since 1970 when there were 28,026 Haitian-born in the United States.
Up until 1990, the foreign born from Haiti ranked behind most foreign-born groups in terms of size (see Table 1). For instance, in 1980, the number of Haitian born in the United States (92,395) was smaller than the foreign-born population from the Netherlands (103,136), Hungary (144,368), and Austria (145,607).
By 2008, the Haitian-born population was more than five times larger than the Dutch (85,635) and Hungarian (80,333) immigrant populations and ten times larger than the foreign-born population from Austria (52,707).
In 2008, the Haitian born were the fourth largest immigrant group from the Caribbean basin following the foreign born from Cuba (974,657), the Dominican Republic (771,910), and Jamaica (636,589) (see Table 1; see also the pie charts showing the top 10 countries of birth of immigrants residing in the United States over time here [INSERT LINK]).
About one of every 20 Haitians resides in the United States. The 535,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States represent about one-twentieth (5.5 percent) of the total population of Haiti (9.8 million in 2008).
More than 70 percent of the Haitian born resided in Florida and New York. Florida had the largest number of foreign-born residents from Haiti (247,991, or 46.4 percent of the total Haitian-born population) in 2008, followed by New York (128,750, or 24.1 percent).
The next two states with large Haitian-born populations accounted for an additional 14.7 percent of Haitians residing in the United States: New Jersey (40,773, or 7.6 percent) and Massachusetts (37,936, or 7.1 percent).
Between 2000 and 2008, two states saw the size of their Haitian immigrant population grow by more than 10,000 people. In two states the Haitian immigrant population grew by more than 10,000 people between 2000 and 2008: Florida, where it grew by 66,000 from 182,000 to 248,000) and Georgia where the population tripled from 5,000 to 15,000.
More than three-quarters of Haitian immigrants resided in five metropolitan areas. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL, was the metropolitan area with the largest number of Haitian born (183,108, or 34.2 percent of the total Haitian-born population), followed by New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA (159,444, or 29.8 percent), Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH (34,757, or 6.5 percent), Orlando-Kissimmee, FL (24,183, or 4.5 percent), and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA (14,449, or 2.7 percent). These five metropolitan areas accounted for 77.8 percent of the 535,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States.
Over one-quarter of all Haitian foreign born in the United States arrived in 2000 or later. As of 2008, 27.7 percent of the 535,000 Haitian foreign born entered the country in 2000 or later, with 28.8 percent entering between 1990 and 1999, 26.5 percent between 1980 and 1989, 11.2 percent between 1970 and 1979, and the remaining 5.8 percent prior to 1970.
Two-thirds of Haitian immigrants in 2008 were adults of working age. Of the Haitian immigrants residing in the United States in 2008, 8.4 percent were minors (under age 18), 67.3 percent were adults of working age (between 18 and 54), and 24.3 percent were seniors (age 55 and older).
Of the total foreign-born population in the United States in 2008, 7.4 percent were minors, 69.0 percent were of working age, and 23.6 percent were seniors.
The median age of Haitian immigrants in the United States in 2008 was 43.1 compared to 40.8 among all foreign born and 38.2 among all immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Haitian immigrant women outnumbered men in 2008. Of all Haitian immigrants residing in the United States in 2008, 54.0 percent were women and 46.0 percent were men. Among all immigrants, 49.8 percent were women and 50.2 percent were men.
Haitian immigrants were more likely than other immigrant groups to be naturalized US citizens. Among the Haitian foreign born, 48.4 percent were naturalized US citizens, compared to 43.0 percent among the overall foreign-born population.
About half of Haitian immigrants in 2008 were limited English proficient. About 7.5 percent of Haitian immigrants age 5 and older reported speaking "English only" while 39.0 percent reported speaking English "very well." In contrast, 53.6 percent reported speaking English less than "very well," similar to the 52.1 percent reported among all foreign born age 5 and older.
(Note: The term limited English proficient refers to any person age 5 and older who reported speaking English "not at all," "not well," or "well" on their survey questionnaire. Individuals who reported speaking only English or speaking English "very well" are considered proficient in English).
Nearly half of Haitian foreign-born adults had some college education. In terms of academic achievement, Haitian immigrants were concentrated in the middle of the education continuum. In 2008, 28.5 percent of the 458,000 Haitian-born adults age 25 and older had some college education or an Associate's degree compared to 18.4 percent among the 31.9 million foreign-born adults. An additional 16.9 percent of Haitian immigrants had a bachelor's degree or higher compared to 27.1 percent among all foreign-born adults.
On the other end of the education continuum, 26.0 percent of Haitian-born adults had no high school diploma or the equivalent general education diploma (GED), substantially lower than the 32.5 percent among all foreign-born adults. About 28.6 percent had a high school diploma or GED compared to 21.9 percent among all foreign-born adults.
Haitian immigrant women were more likely to participate in the civilian labor force than foreign-born women overall. In 2008, Haitian-born women age 16 and older (71.7 percent) were more likely to participate in the civilian labor force than all foreign-born women (57.1 percent) overall. Haitian-born men were about equally as likely to be in the civilian labor force (80.7 percent) as foreign-born men overall (80.6 percent).
Nearly half of employed Haitian-born men worked in services or in construction, extraction, and transportation. Among the 168,000 Haitian-born male workers age 16 and older employed in the civilian labor force in 2008, 26.1 percent reported working in services and 22.3 percent reported working in construction, extraction, or transportation (see Table 2). By contrast, among the 13.6 million foreign-born male workers age 16 and older employed in the civilian labor force in 2008, 17.4 percent reported working in services and 25.9 percent reported working in construction, extraction, or transportation.
Over one of every four employed Haitian-born women worked in healthcare support. Among the 182,000 Haitian-born female workers age 16 and older employed in the civilian labor force in 2008, 27.2 percent reported working in healthcare support occupations and 22.7 percent reported working in service occupations (see Table 2). By contrast, among the 9.5 million foreign-born female workers age 16 and older employed in the civilian labor force in 2008, 5.4 percent reported working in healthcare support and 25.7 percent reported working in service occupations.
Haitian immigrants were less likely to live in poverty than other immigrant groups. The poverty rate among Haitian immigrant families was 12.9 percent in 2008, lower than the poverty rate among all foreign born families (14.9 percent). The difference was even larger among immigrant families headed by a female householder with no spouse present. Among Haitian immigrant households headed by a female with no husband present, the poverty rate was 20.8 percent in 2008, compared to 30.7 percent for all immigrants.
Legal and Unauthorized Haitian Immigrant Population
There were about 230,000 Haitian lawful permanent residents (LPRs) in 2008. There were about 230,000 Haitian-born lawful permanent residents (LPRs) in the United States in 2008, about 1.8 percent of the estimated total 12.6 million LPRs.
Based on the 2000 Census, the federal government estimated that there were 76,000 unauthorized Haitian immigrants living in the United States. The most recent published estimates from the Department of Homeland Security, based on analysis of the 2000 Census, suggest that the unauthorized immigrant population from Haiti grew from 67,000 in 1990 to 76,000 in 2000. Haitians accounted for 1.1 percent of all unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2000, the 11th-largest unauthorized immigrant group in the country.
Most Haitians who received LPR status in 2008 came as family-based immigrants. In 2008, 26,007 LPRs were admitted from Haiti, 2.3 percent of the 1.1 million LPRs admitted. Of these, 37.2 percent (9,675) came as family-based immigrants and an additional 34.4 percent (8,958) arrived as the immediate relatives of US citizens. An additional 21.6 percent (5,620) arrived as refugees or asylum seekers.
Over half of Haitian-born lawful permanent residents in 2008 were eligible to naturalize. About 140,000 of the estimated 230,000 Haitian-born LPRs (60.9 percent) were eligible to naturalize as of January 2008.
In 2008, the United States deported 1,098 Haitian nationals. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) located and deported 1,098 Haitian nationals. In January 2010, DHS announced a temporary stay on deportations to Haiti in the wake of the massive earthquake that hit the country.
For information about ACS methodology, sampling error, and nonsampling error, click here.
Sources
Monger, Randall and Nancy Rytina. 2009. U.S. Legal Permanent Residents : 2008. US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. Available online.
Rytina, Nancy. 2009. Estimates of the Legal Permanent Resident Population in 2008. October 2009. US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. Available online.
US Census Bureau. 2008 American Community Survey. Accessed from Steven Ruggles, Matthew Sobek, Trent Alexander, et al., Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Population Center, 2004.
US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. 2008 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Various tables. Available online.
World Bank. 2009. World Development Indicators. Washington, DC. Available online.
US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Office of Policy and Planning. Nd. Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000. Washington, DC. Available online
-- Click on title of this postings to see tables associated with article. - John --
By William Branigin, Debbi Wilgoren and Michael D. Shear Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, January 13, 2010; 2:30 PM
Relief workers in Haiti were preparing Wednesday to deal with thousands of dead and injured in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, as foreign governments and international aid organizations mobilized to send assistance to the impoverished Caribbean nation.
With untold numbers of people trapped under rubble a day after the 7.0 magnitude quake struck the capital, Port-au-Prince, Haitians tried desperately to dig them out by hand, witnesses said. The beleaguered Haitian government appeared paralyzed, evidently unable to mount any significant rescue effort on its own.
"It's the disaster of the century" for Haiti, Karel Zelenka, director of Catholic Relief Services in Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues in an e-mail Wednesday morning. "We should be prepared for thousands and thousands of dead and injured."
U.N. officials also said the number of dead could easily reach into the thousands.
In Washington, a White House national security official told Haitian activists Wednesday afternoon that three Americans have been confirmed killed in the quake.
Zelenka said there were "no rescue efforts whatsoever" by the government early Wednesday morning and that everything was being done "by individuals with bare hands." He added that he had not seen "any movement of rescue vehicles," such as ambulances. "People are in shock," he said.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, officials told reporters that heavy equipment, search personnel and medical teams were urgently needed in the nation of 9 million, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said emergency workers had made little progress overnight and urged the United States and other foreign governments to mount a massive international relief effort.
"Basic services such as water and electricity have collapsed almost entirely," Ban said. "Medical facilities have been inundated with injured."
U.N. officials said unknown numbers of people are believed trapped in collapsed buildings -- including scores thought to be buried in the rubble of the hotel that had served as Haiti's U.N. headquarters.
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, interviewed on CNN, estimated the death toll in the "hundreds of thousands," but it was unclear how he arrived at the figure. He cited the density of the capital's vast slums, which he said had largely collapsed.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, Haitian President René Préval described "unimaginable" scenes in Port-au-Prince. "Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," he said. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them." He said the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince is among the dead and that the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, is missing.
Vincenzo Pugliese, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Haiti, said in a statement read in New York that the national palace, the Ministry of Justice, other government buildings, hotels, hospitals, schools and the national penitentiary "have all suffered extensive damage."
"Casualties, which are vast, can only be estimated," Vincenzo Pugliese, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Haiti, said in a statement. "An unknown number, tens if not hundreds of thousands, have suffered varying degrees of destruction to their homes." He said many areas are without water and electricity and that "major transport routes have been severely disrupted" by debris, smashed vehicles and cracks in the earth.
"As we speak, there are still over 100 people unaccounted for under the rubble" of the Christopher Hotel, Alain Le Roy, the top U.N. peacekeeping official, told reporters in New York. "We don't know their fate. Some people have been extracted but only less than 10 for the time being. Some dead, some alive."
The United Nations also reported that the main prison in Port-au-Prince collapsed and that some inmates escaped.
Many other major buildings, such as the Hotel Montana, the presidential palace, Parliament and the National Cathedral, were in ruins, residents said.
"These are very sturdy buildings," said Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States. "If those buildings are damaged, can you imagine what has happened to all these flimsy abodes" in other parts of the city?
The United States, France, China and the Dominican Republic are all sending search and rescue teams to Haiti, the United Nations said. A U.S. military official said tentative plans are underway for the hospital ship USNS Comfort -- which aided Haiti after hurricanes struck Port-au-Prince two years ago -- to dock off the coast and assist the sick and wounded.
At the White House, President Obama pledged that his administration would "respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives" in the aftermath of what he called an "especially cruel and incomprehensible tragedy."
Obama said military planes have flown over the area to assess quake damage and search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Va., Florida and California are due to arrive Wednesday and Thursday. Acknowledging that many Americans are experiencing tough economic times, Obama nevertheless urged people to donate to Haitians affected by the quake.
"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," he said.
After discussing the situation with Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters traveling with her overseas that she has decided to "compress" but not cancel her trip to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia.
Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, based at Norfolk, Va., is steaming toward Haiti and is scheduled to arrive Thursday afternoon. He said the carrier will take on helicopters and provisions as it heads south. In addition, a large amphibious ship is "another day or two away" from Haiti and is expected to carry an expeditionary unit of roughly 2,000 Marines, Fraser said.
Cheryl D. Mills, the chief of staff at the State Department, said about 45,000 U.S. citizens live in Haiti and that the U.S. Embassy there was trying to contact them. "We've received a number of reports of injured U.S. citizens," she told reporters. Of the 172 embassy personnel in Haiti, she said, "almost all" are accounted for. At least eight have been injured, four of them seriously, and U.S. Coast Guard helicopters are evacuating them, Mills said.
She said the department has ordered the evacuation of about 80 nonessential U.S. personnel -- such as spouses and children of embassy employees -- who are expected to leave on Coast Guard aircraft Wednesday afternoon. The embassy building itself has remained intact, she said.
Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the overall coordinator of U.S. relief efforts for Haiti, said two urban search-and-rescue teams are on their way, each with 72 people and "significant" equipment. He said the U.S. effort is focused on saving lives during the first 72 hours after the earthquake.
The quake was centered about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million people. News reports from the capital said survivors were piling bodies of the dead outside as the sun rose Wednesday morning. But with communications networks crippled across the country, there were no firm estimates of the number of fatalities or wounded.
Bob Poff, director of disaster services for the Salvation Army in Haiti, said much of the organization's compound was badly damaged, although the Children's Home was intact. Poff, who was traveling in a truck when the quake struck, wrote in a message to his colleagues that the vehicle was "being tossed to and fro like a toy."
"I looked out the windows to see buildings 'pancaking' down," Poff wrote. "Thousands of people poured out into the streets, crying, carrying bloody bodies, looking for anyone who could help them. We piled as many bodies into the back of our truck, and took them down the hill with us. . . . All of them were older, scared, bleeding, and terrified."
At U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, the unaccounted-for personnel included Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian who as special envoy to Haiti oversees the 12,000 international and Haitian U.N. employees in the country, officials said. Annabi was meeting with a Chinese delegation in the hotel when the earthquake struck at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday; no one who was in the meeting has been located, officials said.
Media reports said eight Chinese U.N. peacekeepers and at least four Brazilian peacekeepers were killed in the quake, with many others missing.
Officials said the Port-au-Prince airport, which lost its control tower during the earthquake, is now able to receive relief flights, but pilots were on their own in coordinating landings with each other.
Le Roy, of the United Nations, said the organization's main logistics base, with stores of water and rations, was also functioning and that 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers had secured the airport and were patrolling the streets in Port-au-Prince.
John Holmes, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the chief U.N. relief agencies -- such as the World Food Program and the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) -- were relatively unscathed by the earthquake and would be in a fairly good position to mount relief operations on the ground.
"My own staff there, they are okay, they're safe, reasonably intact," Holmes said, adding that the World Food Program was flying in 90 metric tons of biscuits for displaced earthquake victims. "We can kick-start the operation."
Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, said he had spoken with first lady Elisabeth Debrosse Delatour, who said she and President Préval were unharmed. Many government workers had already left their offices for the day, he added, and therefore survived the collapse of government buildings.
But Joseph said Delatour told him that "most of Port-au-Prince . . . is destroyed." In addition to the rescue teams, the United States will send up to 48 tons of rescue equipment. The Coast Guard said Tuesday night that it was preparing to deploy cutters and aircraft to deliver aid as needed.
Associated Press reporters who toured Port-au-Prince described scenes of severe and widespread damage and casualties. They saw women covered in dust clawing out of debris and wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands, they said, while many gravely injured people sat in the streets, pleading for doctors. Witnesses reported a series of strong aftershocks. Thousands of people gathered in public squares late into the night, singing hymns and weeping.
"People are out in the streets, crying, screaming, shouting," Zelenka, the CRS director, said Tuesday night. "They see the extent of the damage," he said, but could do little to rescue people trapped under rubble because night had fallen.
Zelenka reported that poorly constructed shantytowns and other buildings had crumbled in huge clouds of dust. Near the CRS headquarters, a supermarket was "completely razed," he said, and a gasoline station and a church were reduced to rubble. Among the worst-hit areas was the impoverished Carrefour section of Port-au-Prince near the sea.
In the wealthier Petionville part of the city, where diplomats and well-off Haitians live in hillside homes, a hospital was wrecked and houses had tumbled into a ravine, according to the Associated Press.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said embassy officials had begun trying to contact as many as possible of the Americans living in the city but were hampered by a lack of communication and by roads that were impassable. About 45,000 Americans live in Haiti, officials said.
"Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth, and clearly the most challenged in our hemisphere," Crowley said Tuesday. "We are standing by to provide whatever assistance we can," he said.
Staff writer Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.
JAKARTA, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's West Sumatra province on Wednesday officially put the final death toll of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake on Sept. 30 at 1,117.
West Sumatra's Governor Gamawan Fauzi said that the latest data is final and he assured that casualty would not increase. However, figures for remote areas will not be verified until October 20.
The data was announced at 4 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) by the governor at the disaster integrated commando post in Padang City after holding coordination meeting with all apparatus of local governments hit by the earthquake.
"The final data showed that casualties are 1,117 and two people are declared missing. As many as 210 missing people at Padangpariaman regency are declared as victims. Meanwhile, the two missing people are still declared missing because their relatives are against their being declared dead," said Gamawan.
Other data showed that 1,214 people are heavily injured and 1,688 got light injuries.
Meanwhile, 135,448 houses are seriously damaged and 78,604 are lightly damaged.
Also damaged were 2,163 classrooms, 51 health facilities, 1,001worship houses, 21 bridges, 178 roads and 130 irrigation infrastructures.
Furthermore, Gamawan said that the data will be presented on Thursday to PresidentSusilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta so that the central government will be able to decide the emergency response period.
Gamawan said he personally hopes that the period will be ended sooner than later.
"Prolonged emergency response will cause bad psychological effect to people," he said.
Gamawan intended to oblige all buildings to be fortified.
"At least, for public service (buildings), there would not be a bargain. They should obey the (quake) standard. For example, in Padang with assumption of 8 Richter scale quake, building should have three floors at maximum," he said.
Gamawan also said that careless local governmentofficials in the construction regulation will be punished.
PADANG, Indonesia — Emergency workers continued to struggle Sunday to reach several remote villages buried beneath landslides caused by a large earthquake, while a steady stream of bodies, wrapped in yellow bags, arrived by ambulance at Padang’s main hospital.
More than 700 people were confirmed dead throughout the island of Sumatra, and thousands remained missing four days after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit the western coast. Heavy rains at night hampered rescue efforts.
In the heart of Padang, with little or sometimes no help coming from the authorities, some affected neighborhoods turned to an informal network of businesses and volunteers to fill the void.
On one block in the city’s Chinese quarter, workers at a coal concern and a truck rental company set up a base from which they dispatched much-needed earth-moving vehicles across the city. The two companies responded to private requests, usually from friends and business partners, said Budianto, 38, who supervises shipping at the coal company, Bumi Anyer Wisesa, and had no experience dealing with rescue missions.
Aside from one soldier who stood guard on a side street where a tractor had started to clear rubble on Sunday morning, officials had yet to reach the neighborhood.
“There’s no coordination with the government at all,” Mr. Budianto said.
A colleague was driving around the city, trying to assess the requests streaming in, but Mr. Budianto was unable to reach him because of erratic cellphone service.
“It’s difficult because there’s no clear command,” he said. “Sometimes someone in a damaged house will come and plead with our truck operators for help.”
Not far away, a group of church volunteers had been treating about 350 patients a day, mostly for less serious injuries. A Malaysian aid truck, apparently noticing the sign outside the volunteers’ temporary facilities, stopped by with some medical supplies. It was the first time the church volunteers had received outside assistance, said Sam Soh, who was coordinating the group’s efforts.
“We are running out of food and medication,” Mr. Soh said. “We can’t give people less than five days of antibiotics for the medication to be effective.”
Doctors said the possibility of finding survivors was increasingly slim with each passing day. The main hospital appeared eerily quiet over the weekend.
“Very few living patients have arrived at the hospital over the weekend,” said Idrus Patarussi, an official from the Indonesian Health Ministry. “The likelihood of finding any more survivors, in fact, is small.”
Anxious family members trying to find their loved ones gathered outside the hospital’s morgue to check lists of names and photographs. Doctors said that most of the bodies that had arrived so far had been identified and taken away by relatives.
“I am here to pick up my husband’s body,” said Titi Relawati, 45, who sobbed at the sight of her husband’s photograph. Rescue workers found her husband buried inside the Ambacang Hotel, the site of the city’s largest rescue effort. Scores are believed to have been buried when the seven-story hotel collapsed.
The authorities said that they had prepared a mass grave in a field just outside the city, but that so far it had not been used. Several mosques were said to be holding collective burial ceremonies at local cemeteries.
As hopes of finding survivors have faded, some have grown angry at the slow pace of rescue efforts, especially residents from more remote villages outside the city.
“There are no medical supplies, no food, no drinks, no aid groups, no government officials — nothing,” Buyung, a 33-year-old standing over his unconscious mother at the hospital in Padang, said about his home village of Tandikek, most of which lies buried beneath a landslide.
Several of Mr. Buyung’s family members managed to evacuate his mother, Saryani, 60, after a concrete slab struck her head. They carried her down a rural, dust-covered road until a passing car picked them up and took them nearly 50 miles to the hospital.
Mr. Chang, the United Nations coordinator, said rescue teams from Australia, Turkey and South Korea had gone north to Padang Pariaman, the rural district where Mr. Buyung’s village is located, on Sunday morning.
The teams were planning to head into the district’s remote areas, where entire villages have been buried, Mr. Chang said.
Indonesian troops who arrived in those areas on Saturday morning were hobbled by a lack of equipment and coordination, angering residents who had been waiting for help since the quake hit Wednesday evening.
Hundreds of people caught in the landslides there were still missing, and few survivors expected to find loved ones alive.
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