Haiti faced a second round of tragedy yesterday as the earthquake-ravaged country struggled to handle even the first trickle of the vast amount of international aid heading its way.
Relief flights were turned back from Haiti’s tiny airport, the port remained closed and most of the capital’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Angry Haitians set up road blocks with the corpses of earthquake victims last night to protest against the delay in emergency aid reaching them.
With three million people in Port-au-Prince facing a desperate shortage of water, food and medicine — and thousands still trapped beneath rubble — experts spoke of a race against time to prevent another wave of deaths.
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The first relief flights arrived yesterday, but the airport soon had to stop them because it was “saturated” and had no aviation fuel for the planes’ return trips. It took six hours to unload a single Chinese plane because of a lack of equipment. A British aid flight was one of eleven turned back.
Supplies were piling up a few hundred miles away in the Dominican Republic, which occupies the other half of the island of Hispaniola.
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The port is unuseable because of damaged wharfs and debris in the water. Most roads are impassable. The Government is barely functioning because whole ministries were destroyed. There is no running water or electricity, little heavy lifting equipment and most communications are down.
The UN mission, whose headquarters was destroyed, is barely operational. Some aid agencies are still searching for their own staff in the ruins of their buildings. Aftershocks continue. “It’s chaos,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which oversees the international response to major disasters. “It’s a logistical nightmare.”
Ren? Pr?val, the Haitian President, said that he had heard estimates of 50,000 dead. He said that 7,000 had already been buried in mass graves. F?lix Augustin, the Haitian Consul-General to the UN, said that more than 100,000 may have perished. Whatever the number, it looks certain to rise.
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Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said that the next 24 hours were critical but admitted: “Just getting to people to provide medical assistance is proving to be very difficult.”
With eight of Port-au-Prince’s hospitals severely damaged, Olivier Bernard, head of M?decins sans Frontières, warned: “We are entering a critical period. There must be massive humanitarian aid arriving this evening. To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours.”
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The British charity Christian Aid said that supplies of food and water could run out within two or three days: “Basic work on sanitation needs to start now,” a spokesman said.
The global response has been remarkable. Scores of countries, agencies and companies from every continent have offered money, rescue teams and emergency supplies.
President Obama pledged an initial $100 million. He said: “To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction: you will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you.”
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The IMF promised $100 million, the UN $10 million and Britain nearly as much. Gordon Brown called the quake a “tragedy beyond imagination”.
The problem is getting it there in time. The US is sending an aircraft carrier, a hospital ship, several naval vessels and 5,500 troops, but they are unlikely to be in Haiti before Monday. Mr Obama admitted: “None of this will seem quick enough if you have a loved one who’s trapped, if you can’t feed your children.”
Amid the chaos, looters have taken to the streets. They swarmed around a wrecked supermarket in the capital, carrying off electronic goods and bags of rice. Others siphoned petrol from a broken tanker. “All the policemen are busy rescuing and burying their own families,” said Manuel Deheusch, the owner of a tile factory. “They don’t have the time to patrol the streets.”