Live: Haiti earthquake latest updates

A spokesman said the team, who were under UN protection, were working alongside Chinese rescuers in an area where the collapsed buildings were thought to include a hospital and a hotel.

1713 GMT The number of UN staff confirmed dead in the Haiti quake has now reached 37 and some 330 are still unaccounted for.

1643 GMT Britons have donated more than £2 million to help earthquake-stricken Haiti in the space of just 36 hours, it was announced today.

The Disasters Emergency Committee said that the money was given online even before the first radio and television appeals were broadcast today.

1627 GMT Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, has appealed for $550 million in aid to be donated for the immediate relief efforts. He says the World Food Programme is currently feeding 8,000 people per day - that must rise to a million within 15 days and two million by next month.

1552 GMT More from Judith Evans: “Those with friends and relatives in Haiti are piling onto the internet to seek news of those in the earthquake zone. Informal message boards - for example, here and the ICRC’s site are filling up with thousands of messages seeking news of lost loved ones.

“Some of the most heatrbreaking messages come via those who are trapped under the rubble and pleading for help via mobile phones. Some have appeared on this site, normally a sports forum. “Please, we need to have a search team go out to Unibank Bourdon... We have confirmation that Christine Legagneur is alive and stuck under the rubble,” says one, which adds Christine’s number. Another says that the singer Regine Madhere is still alive, buried with over 60 others under the ruins of the Caribbean Supermarket. She too has been texting for help.

“It is hard to know whether the search teams on the ground have the capacity to respond: as the 72-hour window for rescuing most living victims draws to a close, reports from Port au Prince indicate they are stretched to breaking point but still doing a heroic job.

“Some more heartening messages are appearing too. On this French-language site, lists of the living and rescued appear. In a typical dialogue, a user named Pierre-Andre updates another named Edwige on the fate of many mutual friends.

“‘How is Paulo Fils Aim?? is your family ok?’ asks Edwige.

“‘Everyone is ok but it’s a disaster here. The earth doesn’t stop trembling,’ says Pierre-Andre.”

1539 GMT With few cemeteries and much of the country vulnerable to flooding, the Haitian government has already begun searching for mass burial sites outside the capital.

“You can’t dig 50,000 graves,’’ said Thomas Ewald, head of an rescue unit that arrived in Haiti yesterday.

The dead will have to be buried quickly to reduce the risk of disease. They will be identified using the methods employed after the 2004 tsunami with pictures taken of each body to be shown to relatives along with small pieces of clothing.

1520 GMT An advance for the US relief effort has arrived in Haiti with the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson now off the coast and hundreds troops on the ground - thousands more soldiers are on the way.

Delayed for hours along with other flights circling over the severely congested Port-au-Prince airport, two planes carrying soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division have finally landed at the airport in the middle of the night. The total number of US soldiers in Haiti is over 400.

The aircraft carrier is carrying 19 helicopters and it has started flights off its deck to the island.

The carrier also has water-purifying equipment and three surgical operating rooms.

1454 GMT We have further news on Redjeson Hausteen Claude, 2, who was rescued after two days trapped in the rubble. The toddler was clearly shocked as he was pulled free by a joint Spanish and Belgian rescue team. But a broad smile spread across his face when he came face to face with his parents, Daphnee Plaisin and Reginald Claude.

1434 GMT From Judith Evans of The Times, who is investigating the way people are using the internet to communicate about Haiti - or with Haiti. She says: “Pierre Côt?, based in Montreal, is running a continuous live broadcast. He reports that Paolo Chilosi, who runs the Haitian internet service provider Multilink, is keeping his network going using power from gas generators – but may have to close it down shortly unless he can get more fuel on the black market that is springing up in Haiti. (Chilosi is Tweeting at twitter.com/internethaiti.)

“Pierre is in touch with citizen journalists in Haiti who periodically provide him with harrowing live footage. He is also circulating messages about those in need of help and seeking lost relatives. ‘There’s a lot of information the media doesn’t have,’ he says – including news of a gang that he says is stopping cars in Port au Prince to steal their contents.”

1421 GMT Ann Barnes, who works for the UN, is the first British person to be named among the missing after the earthquake Haiti – she has not been accounted for since the building she was working in collapsed on Tuesday.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed that she was missing and said there was a list of other missing Britons, but she refused to say how many people were on it

A woman, who said she was Mrs Barnes’ former sister-in-law and good friend, posted a picture of Mrs Barnes and a message on the CNN website saying: “No news yet and I am very afraid.”

1401 GMT M?decins Sans Frontières say they are not able to cope with the huge demand for emergency surgery. A spokesman said: “All teams are doing their best in terms of administering basic medical care, but surgery needs are huge - alll three existing MSF medical facilities in the capital have been damaged.

1348 GMT David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, says responses to the crisis would test the world. He said: “Parents who have lost so many children they cannot bury them, children who have lost parents and have no hope - these are scenes that we must never forget.

“And our whole world is going to be tested on how we can respond, and how we can help in the emergency stage and also how we help to rebuild this country.”

1324 GMT The British Red Cross has just Tweeted to say: “Huge thank you to HRH the Prince of Wales who has made a substantial donation to our #Haiti earthquake appeal”. We have compiled a list of some interesting Twitter users posting messages from Haiti or about Haiti.

1251 GMT In France, hundreds of French couples who were in the process of adopting children from Haiti were told to contact the authorities to find out whether their child had survived the earthquake.

“We know that some nurseries were spared and that the children have taken refuge in a church,” said Yves Nicolin, president of the French adoption agency AFA. “Unfortunately, we have also received information that some crèches were destroyed and that the children are dead.”

1235 GMT CBS News has made a short (graphic) video report from Port-au-Prince - they say that the downtown area has been taken over by gangs with machetes in the power vacuum left by the lack of police or Government.

1219 GMT Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, says 100 UN staff who were in the collapsed headquarters building were still unaccounted for.

1147 GMT The New York Times reports that in an extremely rare act of co-operation, the United States has struck an agreement with the Cuban government to send medical evacuation flights with victims from the Haiti earthquake through restricted Cuban airspace.

Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said an agreement was reached with the Cuban military for flights to be allowed throughout this crisis.

1122 GMT Amid the deaths and the shortages, stories are still emerging of rescues and survivors in the rubble. A French woman was pulled from wreckage by the US Agency for International Development. Rebecca Gustafson, speaking on behalf of the agency, said the victim’s first request was for a glass of red wine. The Americans left the thirsty woman disappointed.

Perhaps she would have been luckier with one of the teams of French emergency workers. Richard Santos, 47, from Washington, was among the survivors rescued from the Hotel Montana by the French. “I spent 50 hours inside, 50 hours!” he bellowed.

1055 GMT People all over the world are raising millions of pounds to send to Haiti - in Britain you are advised to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee (at www.dec.org.uk or on the phone 0370 60 60 900). Some fundraisers are being more inventive - we have already heard that George Clooney is working on a plan with MTV but one plastic surgeon in New York has come up with a remarkable plan. On January 20 he will donate all proceeds from his botox and filler proceedures. Beauty ain’t skin deep and all that.

1023 GMT Giles Whittell, our Washington Correspondent, is in Port-au-Prince, he will be keeping us up-to-date with the latest developments once the sun rises in Haiti. He says that as he arrived last night there were long queues of people trying to find a way out of the increasingly desperate city.

1018 GMT Sylvain Angerlotte, 22, sums up the mood on the streets of Port-au-Prince where thousands are struggling to deal with bereavement while going without food, water and essential supplies. “We need food. The people are suffering. My neighbours and friends are suffering,” he said. “We don’t have money. We don’t have nothing to eat. We need pure water.”

1002 GMT The UN World Food Program says its warehouses in the Haitian capital have been looted. The organisation says it is not sure how much of its pre-earthquake 15,000 ton food stockpile remains in Port-au-Prince.

A spokeswoman said that looting was normal in emergency situations she said that with hundreds of thousands of survivors going hungry, food stores in the capital “have been cleaned out” since the quake.

0859 GMT Harrowing testimony in this interview with Wyclef Jean, the Haitian singer and record producer who flew straight home after the earthquake and reckons there could be half a million people at risk. “It’s the apocalypse,” he says. “We spent the day picking up dead bodies.”

0825 GMT A Philippine military spokesman says that the first “proof of life” has been heard by rescuers at the shattered Hotel Christopher, headquarters of the UN mission in Haiti. The Philippines Inquirer website says that three trapped Filipino peacekeepers could be alive in the rubble, where more than 100 UN personnel are unaccounted for including the Tunisian mission head.

0725GMT Jean Bertrand Aristide, the former Haitian president who has been exiled in South Africa since 2004, has said that he is ready to return to help rebuild the country in the wake of the devastating earthquake. But he gave no indication of exactly when he would go back. “As far as we are concerned, we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time, to join the people of Haiti. To share their suffering to rebuild the country, moving from poverty with dignity,” Mr Aristide told reporters this morning, as tears streamed down his face.

0630GMT A nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier is speeding towards Haiti this morning to assist the international relief effort. As the USS Carl Vinson sailed toward the devastated country, US President Barack Obama promised Haitians they would not be forgotten and pledged to devote every element of US power to their recovery. The Vinson, a super carrier, was dispatched from Norfolk, Virginia shortly after Tuesday’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Designed for war, the ship space ordinarily reserved for fighter jets was instead filled with 19 helicopters due to dispatch water, medicine and other aid to thousands of desperate Haitians.

0515GMT British search and rescue workers waiting to join the relief effort in Haiti have now all arrived, according to the Department for International Development. Speaking via satellite telephone from the team’s base inside the perimeter of the airport in Port-au-Prince, a spokesman said: “We can confirm all our humanitarian personnel are now in the country. A team made up of seven search and rescue specialists including a doctor and a paramedic has gone out on its first mission. At around 2am UK time they went under police escort to the Carrefour district of Port-au-Prince where there were reports of people trapped under a collapsed building.”

0400GMT Another encouraging tale of survival has emerged: Spanish rescuers pulled a two-year-old boy from a collapsed home last night. Dirty and teary-eyed, Redjeson Hausteen Claude appeared to smile at his ecstatic mother as he was carried from the rubble.

0245GMT Hollywood star George Clooney has begun working with MTV to plan a telethon for Haitian earthquake relief. MTV spokesman Mark Jafar said that details about staging the event are currently being worked out. There is no word yet about other stars getting involved, but a spokesperson for Clooney said the actor is in the process of helping organise the telethon, which is likely to air on January 22 on all MTV networks as well as on ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN in the US.

01.35GMT Crews have rescued a security guard from the collapsed UN headquarters building in Port-au-Prince, where 36 UN personnel were killed in the earthquake, and nearly 200 remain missing. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the UN’s mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa, are among roughly 100 people still buried in the rubble of the five-story headquarters building. Mr Ban said that rescuers at the collapsed headquarters building heard “scratching sounds” and located Tarmo Joveer, an Estonian close protection officer, under about 4m (13 feet) of rubble. He was given water through a rubber pipe, pulled out and taken to the UN mission hospital run by Argentine staff. “It was a small miracle during a night which brought few other miracles,” Mr Ban said.

01.00GMT While the official death toll from the Haiti earthquake will not be known for a while as rescuers continue to search through the rubble for survivors, the International Red Cross has estimated that the final figure is likely to be between 40,000 and 50,000 people killed. “The main figures have been given by the Haiti government, and they are talking about 40,000 to 50,000 people having been killed,” said Xavier Castellanos, head of the Americas zone of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“The scale of this event means the toll will be high and the figure given by the government is likely the right one,” he said. He added that “at least three million people had been directly affected. That’s to say a third of the population.”

23.55 GMT This exclusive coverage from our correspondent Giles Whittell, who has just reached Port-au-Prince: Miriam Labranche explained why she drove out of the capital and over the border. “There’s nothing to eat,” she said. “The shopkeepers are dead. The markets have collapsed.” Miriam returned last night from the Dominican border with spaghetti, sausages, milk, juice and fruit stuffed in the back of a four by four to feed a family of ten and neighbours in the once relatively prosperous Delmas district of the capital.

Hers is a devastated district, and a stricken family. She lost her brother three hours after the earthquake struck, and her cousin the next day. “My brother was trapped in our house and broke his leg. We dug him out and took him to hospital but he lost too much blood.”

23.45 GMT As aid struggles to get through, law and order breaks down. Witnesses report that road-blocks made of corpses can be seen on the streets as machete gangs roam the capital Port-au-Prince.

22.00 GMT Spain has announced that its ambassador to Haiti received an injury to his arm during the earthquake and has been evacuated to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay for treatment.

21.55 GMT Canada says it is to announce measures to possibly fast-track immigration of Haitians after a quake devastated the Caribbean nation. Prime Minister Stephen Carter said that opening up the immigration process “will be something the government will be addressing in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for an international donor conference to be held to maximise aid.

20.50 GMT Relief efforts were slowed this afternoon because Haiti’s airport temporarily filled up to maximum capacity, leading to a halt in incoming flights. “The Haitian government... told us they are not currently accepting any flights in the Haitian airspace because the ramp area at the Port-au-Prince airport is saturated,” said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the US Federal Aviation Administration.

2046 GMT The White House has dismissed a comment by evangelical preacher Pat Robertson that Haiti’s earthquake was a curse because the country swore a “pact to the devil” as “utterly stupid.” Mr Robertson weighed in on Haiti’s history on his Christian Broadcasting Network show. Haitians were originally “under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal. Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.”

2013 GMT At a press conference in Florida, the US military says it is sending 30 palettes of relief to victims of the earthquake tomorrow.

2008 GMT Haiti’s main port has“collapsed and is not operational,” the shipping company Maersk Line has said, further hampering already-damaged rescue efforts.

1841 GMT The Red Cross federation have come up with a new estimate for the number of victims of the Haitian earthquake. A spokesman said they had arrived at a total of between 45,000 and 50,000 deaths based on information from a wide network of volunteers across the capital city.

1829 GMT The United Nations may have lost as many as 200 members of staff during the earthquake but there was a tiny glimmer of hope today when Tarmo Joveer an Estonian close protection officer was pulled out of the rubble unscathed.

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General, said it was “a small miracle” in the face of many deaths. The confirmed dead include 19 peacekeepers, four international police officers and 13 civilians. About 160 UN civilian members of staff, 18 police officers and ten military personnel are still missing.

1814 GMT The influx of aid flights to Port-au-Prince has left Haitian air space saturated. The Government has been forced to ask the United States and other countries not to authorise any more into the city until further notice.

1756 GMT The Queen’s representative in Canada, who was born in Haiti, made an emotional speech today reflecting the anguish of the Haitian diaspora. Micha?lle Jean, the Governor General of Canada, spoke in French, English and Creole but was frequently reduced to tears as she expressed her solidarity. The Canadian Press broadcast video footage of the speech.

1735 GMT We have set up a short list of Twitter accounts that seem to be providing interesting information from the ground in Port-au-Prince.

1728 GMT Oxfam have announced that an American member of staff was killed when their headquarters partially collapsed on Tuesday. Amedee Marescot was a business manager, he is survived by his wife and three children who are based in the United States. A spokesman said the rest of the 100-strong team were safe.

1708 GMT Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, has begun to sketch out a rebuilding plan for Haiti. “I proposed to President Obama that the United States, Brazil, Canada take the initiative to organise a major international conference. . . to rebuild the country,” he said.

1638 GMT Reports from inside Haiti are becoming ever more grim. Around 1,000 bodies are reportedly lying outside Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital while pick-up trucks piled with corpses continue to deliver the dead to a morgue at the hospital.

1619 GMT Hillary Clinton told NBC that skilled rescue workers would have to be incredibly careful not to make the situation worse. “This calamity has affected 3 million people. It has caused the collapse of tens of thousands of buildings. We know that there will be tens of thousands of casualties.

“But this is — I don’t want to mislead anybody. This is a devastating catastrophe. And just to figure out what steps to take so we don’t make the situation worse — I mean, it’s like looking at these collapsed buildings. You know, you pull out one, you know, piece of wood; you may cause more damage than if you just let it stay there and went in a different way.”

1601 GMT: Planes carrying teams from China and France, Spain and the United States have all now landed at Port-au-Prince’s airport bringing rescue workers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies.

It took six hours to unload a Chinese plane because the airport lacked the necessary equipment, however, in an ominous hint of possible bottlenecks ahead

1550 GMT: The American Red Cross says that its campaign to ask donors to give a $10 donation by text message has raised $3.1 million for Haiti in its first 24 hours

1540 GMT: A spokeswoman for UNOCHA, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says that UN staff are still working even though they are traumatised, and that food aid distribution has now started in Haiti.

“We have to be very quick. Given the logistical nightmare, that’s why it takes time. Roads are being repaired and cleared by the government. Some tent supplies and tarpaulins are already arriving in Port au Prince. Food distribution has started in Port au Prince and started yesterday in Jacmel.”

Conditions are desperate, however. “Eight local hospitals are badly damaged, we are overwhelmed by the number of injured. There is no electricity network, it’s very sporadic – there are generators but they are not sufficient. The main issue is the communication. It’s very difficult to communicate, even on the internet – batteries are running low.”

1522 GMT: President Obama says that the US is offering Haiti $100 million in immediate aid plus the services of every element of US power to help the country . Washington is sending ships, helicopters, planes, rescue teams, a floating hospital and more than 5,000 troops

1515 GMT: The International Monetary Fund says it is making $100 million available to Haiti immediately as an extension of its existing loan

1437 GMT: Save the Children says that it is extremely worried about the plight of up to two million children in Haiti, who may find themselves alone on the streets.

“This is not a safe place for children. We know that the prison has collapsed and lone children are incredibly vulnerable,” said Gareth Owen, Save the Children’s director of emergencies.

“Many will have been orphaned or be badly injured themselves and in urgent need of medical help. Thousands more will have lost all contact with their families and friends and are now struggling to survive alone in the rubble. They are sleeping on their own, trying to cope with the trauma of seeing dead bodies, and will have no idea where to go for help.

“Children mimic adults in these sorts of crises. They see grown-ups scrabbling through the debris looking for bodies, and will try to follow suit. Aside from the damage this is doing to their mental health, it’s putting their safety in danger as buildings will be very unstable and may still collapse.”

Twenty of the charity’s 130 personnel in Haiti are still unaccounted for.

1420 GMT: The first 80 French citizens to be evacuated from Haiti have arrived on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, on board three Casa military transport planes that Paris sent to Haiti yesterday carrying rescue personnel and equipment

1410 GMT: The US announces that it is sending 300 medical staff to Haiti and has placed 12,000 more on alert for possible deployment. In addition, members of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will travel to Haiti to monitor the quality of food and water and try to control the spread of disease

1405 GMT: SES World Skies says that it is donating satellite capacity on five of its spacecraft to provide inbound and outbound connectivity for the disaster zone as well as internal communication links. The first satellite-based networks for Haiti went live today

1400 GMT: The Salvation Army reports that it has managed to find all but one of the 52 children the charity cared for at its children’s home on Haiti, after initial fears that they may have been trapped in collapsed schools

1345 GMT: AId workers already in Haiti are already managing to provide some limited help to the earthquake victims. Medecins Sans Frontieres says that although its three clinics are too badly damaged to use, it has set up outdoor clinics under tent roofs where its 800 medical staff have already provided basic first aid and stabilisation to more than 1,000 of the injured who are flocking to them from local neighbourhoods and farther afield.

Paul McPhun, MSF’s operations manager, gave a video briefing this morning on the trauma injuries that doctors are coping with, and the international charity’s plans to fly in mobile hospital equipment to increase the level of care they can offer

1336 GMT: The United States is to send up to 3,500 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to assist with disaster relief and security. The first 100 troops will arrive later today and begin preparing for the arrival of the larger force, said Major Brian Fickel. Separately, the Pentagon is also sending an aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines

1325 GMT The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has released a statement on the events in Haiti. He says: “I am profoundly shocked and concerned to hear about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. As the news comes through, we are learning more about the tragic loss of life, injury suffered and terrible damage to the country. We stand alongside all the people in Haiti affected by this terrible disaster in prayer, thought and action as the situation unfolds. We pray for the rescue of those still trapped and look towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.

“I commend the swift action of the Department for International Development and the relief agencies in mobilising an emergency response. In this time of catastrophic loss and destruction, I urge the public to hold the people of Haiti in their prayers, and to give generously and urgently to funding appeals set up for relief work.”

1250 GMT: Up to 200 United Nations’ staff in Haiti, including peacekeepers, remain unaccounted for, a UN spokeswoman says.

“Between 50 to 100 MINUSTAH (peacekeeping) staff are believed trapped in the building. In total, between 115 and 200 are unaccounted for, but it is an estimate from last night,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

1242 GMT: The advisers briefing Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, have a a sober assessment of the death toll. “We know it’s going to be in the tens of thousands,” Mrs Clinton says on NBC’s morning TV news show. She promises a “long-term effort” to help

1203 GMT The UK has announced a £6 million ($10 million) donation for the Haitian aid effort. Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, said: “The most pressing need is for international search and rescue teams - including firefighters from all over Britain - to get on with their work of saving lives.

“But at the same time there is an overwhelming requirement for food, water, sanitation, shelter and medicine among the people who have been made homeless. That is why the Department for International Development is providing money to help kickstart humanitarian relief in Haiti.”

1110 GMT Relief organisations are warning that there is a 48-hour window for the rescue and medical effort to get going if it’s going to save large numbers of lives: “We are entering a critical period. There must be massive humanitarian aid arriving this evening,” said Olivier Bernard, president of the medical relief organisation Medecins du Monde.

“What we need is tents, tents and more tents. We need large or individual tents, whatever is available, and financial support quickly,” added Vincent Houver, the Haiti chief of mission for the International Organisation for Migration.

1001 GMT: Four volunteers from the UK charity MapAction arrived in the Dominican Republic this morning to provide emergency mapping services for the UN assessment team and the search and rescue teams.

The team will gather data to update existing maps, helping to identify where help is needed, where bridges or roads may no longer be usable, where survivors have gathered and the most effective way to get to where rescuers can make the most difference

1000 GMT: In the UK, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is already taking donations through a special phone line, 0370 60 60 900, and through its website www.dec.org.uk. It also expects to launch a TV appeal tomorrow to be broadcast by the BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Al-Jazeera.

A DEC spokesman said giving money was the best way to help so supplies could be purchased as close as possible to the disaster area - preferably in Haiti itself - and sent straight to those in need. The money raised from the DEC’s Haiti Earthquake Appeal will support the efforts of 13 major UK aid agencies: Action Aid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision

0945 GMT: The first boots on the ground in the worldwide effort appear to be Chinese. An Air China plane loaded with ten tonnes of tents, food and medical equipment landed at Port-au-Prince this morning. Aboard, in orange jumpsuits, was a 60-strong earthquake relief team that had first-hand experience in the huge Sichuan quake two years ago, in which almost 90,000 people were killed.

“Most of the members are very experienced,” Liu Xiangyang, deputy chief of the National Earthquake Disaster Emergency Rescue Team, told the official Xinhua News Agency before their departure.

Eight Chinese peacekeepers who had been visiting the UN mission headquarters were killed in the Haiti quake and a further ten have been reported missing.

0913 GMT: The International Committee of the Red Cross has launched a website to help Haitians at home and abroad to find loved ones missing in the devastating earthquake.

Families can use the site to register the names of missing relatives. The Red Cross says it hopes the dedicated site will help restore contact between separated family members

0800 GMT: A number of British rescue teams have arrived in the Dominican Republic, the neighbouring country to Haiti, aboard a plane charted by the Department for International Development. A four-man team from the UK Government and 71 rescue specialists with dogs and heavy equipment landed shortly after 0700 GMT. They hope to be in Port-au-Prince by 1100 GMT (6am local time)

0745 GMT: The Japanese government has joined the international relief flodding in for Haiti, pledging $5 milllion in aid for the earthquake victims

0700 GMT: Britain’s International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander told GMTV that 16 of the 32 British nationals living in Port-au-Prince remain missing after the earthquake, but added: “There are no indications of British casualties”.

Mr Alexander will join British aid agencies this morning to launch a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for victims of the quake. He said: “(Haiti) is a desperately difficult country. About half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, and the scenes we witnessed yesterday would challenge even the strongest of governments.

“My ambassador told me there was a very strange atmosphere in the city today. Many people are not willing to go back into buildings. So there are not just bodies in the streets but people are actually living on the streets at the moment.”

0530 GMT: The US Red Cross has committed to sending $1 million in aid to Haiti, as donations continue to flood into aid agencies from around the world. The social networking site Twitter has been flooded with people urging others to donate to the Red Cross

0350 GMT: Australia has pledged $9.2 million in emergency aid for the Haiti earthquake, with further funds to follow for reconstruction. “We’re making a significant contribution, but given the scale of the disaster and our strength of relations with the Caribbean region, we believe it’s entirely appropriate,” the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

0330 GMT: Amidst the death and devastation in Haiti some miracle tales of survival are starting to emerge. Earlier today a New Zealand toddler was found alive under the body of her dead father in the rubble of a hotel near Port-au-Prince.

According to stuff.co.nz, two-year-old Alyahna was found by her mother, New Zealander Emily Rejouis, who had been desperately searching for her Haitian husband Emmanuel and three daughters after the earthquake struck. Family members told the website they had heard via text message that Alyahna had been saved by her father who had thrown himself over his daughter to protect her. Ms Rejouis’s other daughters, Zenzie and Kofie-Jade, are still buried under toppled buildings.

0300 GMT: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has confirmed 16 UN personnel were killed in the earthquake that decimated Haiti’s capital, with up to 150 of the organisation’s staff still unaccounted for, including the mission chief and his deputy. Mr Ban said 11 Brazilian peacekeepers and five international police officers — three from Jordan and one each from Chad and Argentina — were killed in the “horrendous” quake. 56 others were injured, and seven who were seriously hurt were evacuated from the country.

“Many continue to be trapped inside UN headquarters and other buildings,” said Mr Ban, noting that includes the UN’s mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa. “Other peacekeepers and civilian staff from many member states remain unaccounted for.”

0140 GMT: Celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Ben Stiller, have begun pledging money and urging support for the earthquake victims in Haiti. Doctors Without Borders announced earlier today that Pitt and Jolie were contributing $1 million to the organisation’s emergency medical operations responding to the earthquake. The aid agency said it is dispatching a surgical team and equipment to establish a 100-bed inflatable tent hospital with two operating rooms. “We understand the first response is critical to serve the immediate needs of countless people who are now displaced from their homes, are suffering trauma, and most require urgent care,” said Pitt.

Winfrey began her television talk show yesterday by asking viewers to donate to the Red Cross. “This is a time where we, as a global nation, should come together and support those who are in need,” she said.

0050 GMT: One of the first foreign search and rescue teams landed in Port-au-Prince earlier in the evening to offer assistance to locals in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. A 37-man International Search and Rescue Team from Iceland landed in the Haitian capital at 2100 GMT.

Meanwhile British rescue teams are due to arrive in Haiti later today. A four-man team was sent by the government to assess the damage and a team of 71 rescue specialists with dogs and heavy equipment set off from Gatwick Airport last night.

0010 GMT: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has followed suit with Mrs Clinton and cancelled his trip to Asia to deal with the crisis afflicting Haiti.

2348 GMT: (This from our correspondent James Bone in New York) Michelle Montas, a Haitian who retired recently aa chief UN spokesman, emailed UN colleagues from Port-au-Prince: “The city is 80 per cent destroyed. I saw hundreds of bodies in the street this morning and people trying to reach survivors under the buildings and carrying the wounded on doors and makeshift stretchers.” Ms Montas is the widow of prominent murdered Haitian journalist Jean Dominique, the subject of the Jonathan Demme documentary “The Agronomist.”

2335 GMT: More ominous predictions about the death toll, as Mrs Clinton says it will be one of the highest losses of life in recent years and compared it to the 2004 Asian tsunami.

2322 GMT: The FBI has warned potential donors to earthquake relief funds to Haiti to be on the lookout for fraud schemes trying to exploit the wave of public sympathy to make money. “The FBI today reminds Internet users who receive appeals to donate money in the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake in Haiti to apply a critical eye and do their due diligence before responding to those requests,” it said.

2320 GMT: Hillary Clinton says she has cancelled the remainder of her trip to the Pacific and will return to Washington.

2240 GMT: Snow at Gatwick airport has held up a flight carrying 70 British rescue specialists bound for Haiti with 10 tonnes of equipment. The plane eventually departed at around 1840 GMT and was among the first to take off after the runway was cleared, a spokesman said.

20.55 GMT The guessing game over the number of fatalities continues. Asked by a CNN reporter how many people had died, the Haitian President Rene Preval said “I don’t know”, adding: “Up to now, I heard 50,000 ...30,000.” Earlier, the Prime Minister said that the toll could top 100,000

2022 GMT: The UN mission chief who was missing along with more than 100 people in the rubble of the collapsed headquarters building in Haiti has been found dead in the rubble, it has been confirmed. Hedi Annabi was a career Tunisian diplomat who worked to help alleviate the Caribbean nation’s grinding poverty, violence and deadly tropical storms.

1935 GMT: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she will shorten a trip to Asia because of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Mrs Clinton told reporters she still planned to visit Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia but would spend less time in each place. “It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to stalk Haiti and the Haitian people,” she said, following conversations with Mr Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, USAID director Rajiv Shah and others.

1811 GMT: A UN spokeswoman has told the AFP news agency that up to 200 of its staff are missing. The organisation fears it may suffer the worst one-day death toll in its history.

1805 GMT: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie say they are “devastated” by the news and will donate

1716 GMT: The Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive has told CNN that the final death toll from the quake could top 100,000. “I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out. Because we have so much people on the streets right now, we don’t know exactly where they were living. But so many, so many buildings, so many neighborhoods totally destroyed, and some neighborhoods we don’t even see people, so I don’t know where those people are.”

1636 GMT: Gatwick airport is finally reopening after the show has been cleared and the first flight out is a DFID flight carrying specially trained firefighters headed for Haiti.

1635 GMT: US Navy ships at bases along the East Coast have been told to prepare to head towards Haiti. Defence officials say that C130 cargo planes could also be called into action to help with the relief effort.

1515 GMT: President Preval makes his first public statement since the catastrophe, telling the Miami Herald that he has been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national parliament - among them Kely Bastien, the president of the Haitian Senate.

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them,” said Mr Preval, adding that he had not slept since the quake hit. He and his wife Elisabeth were not in their palace when it fell down.

Mrs Preval said: “This is a catastrophe. I’m stepping over dead bodies. A lot people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers.”

1455 GMT: The archbishop of Port-au-Prince is among those killed, the Missionary International Service News Agency reported from Rome. “The body of Monsignor Serge Miot ... was pulled from the rubble of his offices in Port-au-Prince,” MISNA said, quoting missionaries from the Saint Jacques Society.

1450 GMT: The first three US rescue teams will leave for Haiti today, the State Department says. A C-17 cargo plane is leaving Canada with medical supplies and helicopters for search-and-rescue work.

1415 GMT: The UN confirms that the main airport at Port-au-Prince is still operational and aid should start to flow in soon. Commercial flights into the city have been suspended.

1350 GMT: More details on the UN’s losses. Alain Leroy, head of peacekeeping, says that five people are confirmed dead in the collapsed UN HQ. “More than 10 people have been extracted from the building, some dead some alive,” he added. There were between 100 and 150 people in the building at the time.

1335 GMT Mr Ban says that he is sending Edmond Mulet, a senior UN official who was Mr Annabi’s predecessor, to Haiti. He is also enlising the support of Bill Clinton, the former US President who acts as a special UN envoy for Haiti, in mobilising the aid effort.

1330 GMT In a statement to MPs, the International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said around six million people live in the area hit and one million are living in the worst-affected area.“By any measure, this is a terrible tragedy,” he said.

1325 GMT Briefing reporters at the UN, Ban Ki Moon says quake has had “a devastating impact” on Port-au-Prince, basic services have all but been wiped out. The UN chief says that the number killed will be “in the hundreds”. He confirms that Mr Annabi, the chief of the UN mission in Haiti, and his deputy are both unaccounted for. The UN is immediately releasing $10 million dollars in emergency aid funding.

1310 GMT The EU has activated its emergency crisis management system to help quake-hit Haiti. “We have put in place at the European level all crisis and aid management mechanisms,” said Pierre Lellouche, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs. “We have put in place the entire European crisis management system.”

1235 GMT: Raymond Joseph, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, says that what his country needs now most of all is medical help. “A hospital ship off the coast of Haiti is a must for us right now,” he tells US television. The ambassador said that it was a mercy that a lot of employees had left office buildings before the quake struck, shortly after 5pm

1230 GMT: Gordon Brown pledges assistance to Haiti, as he takes part in Prime Minister’s questions in the Commons. “Haiti has moved to the centre of the world’s thoughts and the world’s compassion,” he tells MPs. “The Government will respond with emergency aid in firefighters, emergency equipment and finance.”

1210 GMT: Adriano Campolina, ActionAid’s Americas international director, says the charity has been able to reestablish contact with its 20 staff in Haiti. “We are expecting a massive death-toll as the main slum areas of downtown Port-au-Prince and neighbouring areas were badly affected,” she warns. “There is also lots of concern about the damage in Carrefour, the epicentre of the earthquake. In the capital Port-au-Prince 80 per cent of people live in absolute poverty in shanty towns spread out over the city’s hills. We will be doing an initial assessment and are trying to get extra staff flown as soon as possible.”

1205 GMT: France’s foreign minister confirms that Hedi Annabi, the head of the UN Mission, and “all those around him” are now believed dead

1200 GMT: The European Commission says it has released three million euros in emergency aid, and will give more once its disaster experts have assessed Haiti’s needs

1132 GMT: The Brazilian Army says that four of its peacekeeping troops are dead, five wounded and a large number of others are missing. The statement brings the number of foreign peacekeepers confirmed to have died in the quake to 15

1130 GMT: A Philippines diplomat says that a number people - some of them members of the 157-strong Filipino peacekeeping contingent - are trapped still alive in the wreckage of the UN mission, and that other of the Filipino troops are assisting efforts to rescue them

1120 GMT: The UN reveals that 200-250 of its staff were inside the UN peacekeeping headquarters in the Christopher Hotel in Port au Prince when the building collapsed. Several bodies have already been retrieved from the rubble. The nearby World Food Programme building is however still standing and most staff are accounted for, but the Unicef headquarters in the Haitian capital is damaged

1116 GMT: Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, is to give a statement to the Commons on the quake at around 12.30pm

1115 GMT: Save the Children says that half of its 60 strong staff in Haiti remain unaccounted for. None is British. The UK charity has released £50,000 of its funds for relief work in Haiti

1106 GMT: The International Federation of the Red Cross estimates that 3 million people have been affected by the earthquake

1101 GMT: Hsu Mien-sheng, Taiwan’s ambassador to Haiti, has been injured. His country’s foreign ministry say that he was treated in hospital for a fracture. Taiwan is sending a search team with sniffer dogs to help the rescue effort

1100 GMT Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the exiled former president who has lived in South Africa since he was deposed in the 2004 coup, has released a statement grieving for his country.

“My wife and I stand with the people of our country and mourn the death and destruction that has befallen Haiti,” he said. “It is a tragedy that defies expression; a tragedy that compels all people to the highest levels of human compassion and solidarity.

“From Africa, the ancestral home of Haiti, we send our profoundest condolences and love to the thousands of children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters worst affected.”

1054 GMT The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says up to 3 million people have been affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

1045 GMT Pope Benedict XVI has urged a generous response to the“tragic situation” in Haiti. Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience, he said that the quake had caused “huge loss of human life”.

“I appeal to the generosity of all to ensure our concrete solidarity and the effective support of the international community for these brothers and sisters who are living a time of need and suffering,” the pontiff said.

1040 GMT An explanation as to why the quake appears to have been quite so destructive. Yann Kinger, a seismologist at the Institute of Physics in Paris, said it was “a very shallow earthquake” occuring at a depth of only 10km (six miles).

“Because the shock was so big and occurred at such a shallow depth, just below the city the damage is bound to be very extensive,” he said.

The US Geological Survey said that the quake measured 7.0 and struck at 2153 GMT, 15km southwest of Port-au-Prince.

1029 GMT President Sarkozy has expressed his“deep emotion” after the quake. France is sending two aircraft with aid supplies and rescue workers, one from Martinique and one from Marseille.

0950 GMT: Gordon Brown says a British team will go to Haiti to see what help the UK can give. Mr Brown has also sent a message of sympathy to Haitian President Rene Garcia Preval

0920 GMT: The Jordanian Army says three of its peackeepers were killed in the quake and 21 injured

0915 GMT: The tragedy is also playing out on Twitter where a top trending topic is “Yele”. This is after the Yele Haiti Foundation set up by the Fugees singer Wyclef Jean, who is from Haiti. If you’re in the US you can contribute $5 via text message or donate through the Yele website.

Wyclef told CNN that he had been on the phone to a friend in Haiti when the quake struck and was cut off. “I’m in the process of looking for a young rapper who went to Haiti to do a mix tape. His name is Jimmy O - it came through on a text that he died. He was part of my foundation Yele Haiti. I’m trying to verify this information – it would be a terrible loss for us,” he said.

‘The over 2 million people in Port-au-Prince tonight face catastrophe alone. We must act now.’

0911 GMT: Jane Cocking, the humanitarian director of Oxfam, said: “Oxfam has its emergency response team for Latin America based in Haiti so we are well-prepared, with a public health, water and sanitation team in Port-au-Prince ready to respond. We also have emergency supplies in Panama that we are preparing to send in as soon as possible.”

She added: “Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, where 85 per cent of people already live in poverty. Given the desperate needs that people face on a day-to-day basis, this earthquake is grim news for the poor people of Haiti.”

0840 GMT: Around 200 people are missing after the collapse of the Hotel Montana, popular with tourists and foreign workers.

“I am talking about the Hotel Montana, where tourists stay and French nationals working in Haiti stay. We know there were 300 people inside the hotel when it collapsed, only around 100 have got out, which greatly concerns us,” said Alain Joyandet, the French Secretary of State for Cooperation.

Around 60 French nationals had taken refuge at the French embassy and others were arriving, he added. The embassy and the ambassador’s residence had both been damaged. France was sending two planes today with rescuers and humanitarian aid.

0835 GMT: Mike Thompson, a BBC reporter who has recently returned from Haiti, says that H?di Annabi, the Tunisian who is head of the UN stabilisation mission in Haiti (Minustah), is missing. The quake destroyed the five storey headquarters of the mission.

The UN has had 5,000 peacekeepers in Haiti since the 2004 coup that deposed the elected president, Jean-Bertrande Aristide. The country was devastated by storms and hurricanes in 2008 that left 900 dead and many thousands homeless. Many of them are still living in tents and camps, Thompson says.

He fears for the safety of Port au Prince’s poorest inhabitants, the thousands upon thousands crammed into ramshackle shelters in Cite Soleil, the largest shanty town in the northern hemisphere. “I dread to think what has happened there. People live very, very close together,” he says.

0830 GMT: China, which has 125 peacekeepers in Haiti, says that eight have been buried in rubble and 10 others are missing.

In a report on its website, the China Daily newspaper said the Chinese casualties were revealed by Liu Xiangyang, vice president of the China National Earthquake Disaster Emergency Rescue Team.

0815 GMT: South Korea says that at least 7 of the 70 South Korean nationals known to be travelling or living in Haiti when the quake struck are still missing

0820 GMT Nan Buzard, of the American Red Cross, tells the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “We believe this is going to be a catastrophic level earthquake. The combination of the size of the quake, the very poor construction , the density of the population and the lack of emergency capacity in Haiti, all contribute to a very grim picture.

“Our US Red Cross office sounds like it has been destroyed. We just had a Skype call and what our staff are saying is that the hospitals are full already. A lot of them aren’t equipped for these kinds of injury. We have a lot of lacerations, a lot of fractures and broken bones. We have people coming down from the mountains into the city to seek treatment at these hospitals. And of course it’s dark now, and it’s late.

“There is nothing worse than not having the equipment to move heavy slabs of concrete, and you are trying to do it by hand and you’re trying to have lights. There is grief, but everyone smiles when someone is freed from the concrete and a cheer goes up around the city.

“In the first few hours and days it is the country itself which much do the work, so it is family helping family, neighbour helping neighbour. Haitians are fierce, they have great faith, they have certainly a lot of human resource capacity. But the systems, the infrastructure isn’t there, and that will hamper the response effort as well.”

0810 GMT: Carel Pedre, a Port au Prince radio journalist, who was caught in the quake as he drove home in his car, tells the BBC that as far as he can tell 100 per cent of the buildings in the capital have been damaged.

“I saw smoke, I saw people crying, I saw people asking for help, I saw people bleeding,” says Mr Pedre, talking by Skype internet phone powered by a generator.

“People are afraid to go back to their houses because of the aftershocks, which are coming really often, every 15-20 minutes. At the radio station, where I am, we have no walls because all the walls have fallen down, fallen down, fallen down. If people are going to sleep it is going to be in the streets, because they are afraid.

“Until now we can’t get the people trapped under the rubble out. The thing is, we don’t have the proper equipment to get the people out under the buildings that collapsed. So we will need two to three days to find out what has really happened, and start counting how many people we have lost.”

0800 GMT: A powerful earthquake has struck close to Port au Prince destroying many buildings in the Haitian capital and burying an unknown number of people in the rubble.

The Presidential palace, the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission and the US Red Cross, and at least one hospital, are among the collapsed structures in the crowded city of 2.5million souls.

The 7.0 magnitude quake brought phone lines and masts down, cutting communications and making it hard to form an accurate estimate of the death toll, but disaster experts say it is likely to be heavy, probably running into the thousands.

Strong aftershocks up to 5.9 in magnitude continue to shake the city, where hundreds of thousands of terrified people are spending the night without shelter. A massive pall of dust hangs over the city, where electricity is cut off and the only power is coming from scarce generators.

America has promised to send emergency experts and equipment, but until international help arrives the rescue effort is mainly limited to families and neighbours tearing at the rubble with their bare hands. The impoverished Caribbean country lacks an effective infrastructure.

Read live updates and see the latest pictures here as the tragedy unfolds.