Haiti calls halt to search for survivors

Published on Saturday 23 January 2010 18:18

HAITI yesterday called a halt to attempts to find anyone alive under the rubble of disaster-hit capital Port-au-Prince.

The barely functioning government said there was little hope of finding people alive after the city was practically levelled by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

But the announcement, made through the United Nations' Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, was followed by the news that a 23-year-old man was recovered alive from the rubble of a fruit and vegetable shop 11 days after the disaster.

The previous day an Israeli team reported pulling a man out of the debris of a two-storey home, and relatives said an elderly woman had also been rescued.

US spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the government's decision didn't mean rescue teams still searching for survivors would be stopped from carrying out whatever work they felt necessary.

Some 132 people have been pulled alive from collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams since the 12 January disaster, Byrs said. Humanitarian relief efforts are still being scaled up in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and other areas affected by the quake, she added.

The quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. Countless dead remained entombed in thousands of collapsed and toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince, while as many as 200,000 people have fled the city of two million, the US Agency for International Development reported.

About 609,000 people are homeless in the Port-au-Prince area alone, and the UN estimates that up to one million could leave Haiti's destroyed cities for rural areas already struggling with extreme poverty.

Some international rescuers had already packed up their gear and headed for home before the Haitians called a halt to search operations.

However, an Israeli search team yesterday said it would stay on. On Friday, it rescued 21-year-old Emmannuel Buso after scrabbling through the debris of his two-storey home and calling to him. To everyone's shock, Buso responded.

Buso was coming out of the shower when the quake hit. "I felt the house dancing around me," he said from a bed in an Israeli field hospital. "I didn't know if I was up or down."

He told of passing out in the rubble, dreaming that he could hear his mother crying. The furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way that it created a small space for him amid the ruins of the house. He had no food. When he got desperately thirsty, he drank his own urine. "I am here today because God wants it," Buso said.

An 84-year-old woman was said by relatives to have been pulled from the wreckage of her home, according to doctors administering oxygen and intravenous fluids to her at the General Hospital. She was reported to be in a critical condition.

Rescuers said they were encouraged, but all too aware that few trapped people can survive such a lengthy ordeal.

"Statistically, you can say that the chances of survival are very low," said Fernando Alvarez Bravo, a representative in Mexico for rescue crews founded during the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and still at work in Haiti on Friday. "But the hope it gives the population to recover and find their loved ones helps them to recover quickly. They don't feel abandoned."

The Israeli delegation was initially meant to be in Haiti for only two weeks. However, their spokeswoman, who declined to be named, citing military regulations, said it was continuously assessing the situation to see whether the team should continue or not.

British rescue teams were yesterday on their way home. The British crews, who were scrambled 11 days ago to help with the biggest natural disaster since the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, pulled three people alive from the rubble, including a two-year-old toddler called Mia, who had been trapped for three days.

International development secretary Douglas Alexander said: "We should all be proud of the brave UK firefighters who worked tirelessly to help the Haitians, in difficult and dangerous conditions. I would like to thank them on behalf of the UK government. Their work is now done, but the international aid effort continues."

British rescuers due home last night included the nine firefighters from Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue who saved two-year-old Mia. Chief fire officer Steve McGuirk said: "They demonstrated tenacity, professionalism and courage in taking part in the UK national response to help the people of Haiti."

Meanwhile, many quake survivors were yesterday expected to gather for the funeral of the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, near the ruins of his cathedral.

Across the world, celebrities and artists made impassioned pleas yesterday for charitable donations during an internationally broadcast telethon.

"The Haitian people need our help," said actor George Clooney, who helped organise the two-hour telecast. "They need to know that they are not alone. They need to know that we still care."

Scores of aid organisations have stepped up deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and other aid to the homeless and other needy. But obstacles remained at every turn in getting help into people's hands.

"I want to leave but I don't have any money. I don't know where to go," said Demonere Mirlande, a 33-year-old mother who lost her home but survived along with her three children.

International agencies, supported by the US military, were yesterday still facing serious problems getting aid in.

The UN said it had used satellite images to pinpoint 691 blockages caused by debris on the main road from Port-au-Prince to the heavily damaged neighbouring city of Carrefour.

Haitian president Rene Preval's administration is working with the UN Development Programme and other aid groups to restore electricity and telecommunications, reopen banks, businesses and money-transfer houses, and to provide at least low-paid jobs to Haitians desperate for income.