Haiti: Little hope of new survivors as 400,000 flee devastation

Published on Friday 22 January 2010 21:52

AN EXODUS by 400,000 people from Haiti's shattered capital is being organised in a desperate attempt to prevent disease adding to the rising death toll.

• Haitians wait in line at a UN aid distribution point in Port-au-Prince near the presidential palace. Picture: Getty

The rubble of Port-au-Prince will be exchanged for a chain of tented towns ringing the capital, with each one capable of sheltering 10,000 survivors.

The government's planned evacuation of the hundreds of basic shelters that have sprung up across the city's ruins comes as all hope of recovering any more survivors has faded.

Last night, Britain's rescue teams were heading home from the devastated nation as the focus switched from finding survivors to recovering the dead. The Rapid UK team has helped to pull two survivors from wrecked buildings during their stint in Haiti – among more than 130 people saved from the debris by overseas workers.

An estimated 200,000 people have perished in the disaster, with about 70,000 cleared from the streets and buried in mass graves.

The Haitian government has promised to help nearly half a million people move from squalid camps on kerbsides and vacant land into safer, cleaner tent cities. Aid officials said some 200,000 people have crammed into buses, nearly swamped ferries and set out even on foot to escape the ruined capital.

For those who stay, foreign engineers have started levelling land on the fringes of the city for temporary tent cities that are meant to house 400,000 people.

The goal is to halt the spread of disease at the hundreds of impromptu settlements that have no water and no place for sewage. Homeless families have erected tents, cardboard and scrap as shelter from the sun, but they will be useless once the summer rainy season hits.

The new camps "are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities", said Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to president Ren Prval.

Armies of foreign aid donors have turned their attention to expanding their pipeline of food, water and medical care for survivors. With extensive swaths of Port-au-Prince in ruins, more than 500 makeshift settlements with a population of about 472,000 are now scattered around the capital, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Mr Longchamp said he expected buses to start moving quake refugees to the first of the planned camps by the end of the month, but aid agencies were cautious about that timetable.

"These settlements cannot be built overnight. There are standards that have to be designed by experts. There is the levelling of the land, procurement and delivery of tents, as well as water and sanitation," said Vincent Houver, the IOM's mission chief in Haiti.

The move will be voluntary and temporary, according to Elisabeth Byrs, the spokeswoman for the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva. "It's to help them in a first move. After, the people will decide if they want to stay," she said.

Many people are just trying to get out of the capital, often back to the farms or provincial homes of their parents or relatives.

There was some good news from the stricken country yesterday when rescuers pulled two barely alive survivors from the rubble of Port-au-Prince.

An 84-year-old woman was pulled from under a wrecked building.

"They pulled her out early this morning. She was barely responding, she had wounds all over her body, and maggots," said Dr Vladimir Larouche, a Haitian-American doctor from New York, working at Port-au-Prince General Hospital.

Elsewhere in the shattered capital, an Israeli rescue team freed a 22-year-old man from the rubble. Rescuers and local residents hugged and celebrated after pulling out the man, who was limp and suffering from dehydration.

The US Agency for International Development said yesterday that as many as 200,000 Haitians had fled the capital and many more were trying to do so.

Meanwhile, more orphans are being evacuated from Haiti and sent to live with new parents abroad, it emerged yesterday. The latest group of children to leave the country are heading to France, where they will be adopted. They will follow 123 already sent to the Netherlands and 54 who went to the United States.

Thousands of children have been left orphaned, triggering a rush of inquiries from around the world about adopting a child from the island – which, before the quake, already had about 380,000 orphans in need of homes.

But charities have expressed concern, saying children whose parents are dead or unaccounted for should be reunited with their extended families, and international adoption should be considered only as a last resort.

The capital's port, which was badly damaged, is now open, but progress is slow. Four ships managed to dock, holding out the promise of a new avenue for getting aid to the city.

A Danish navy ship was seen unloading crates, but the going was slow, as only one lorry at a time could manoeuvre on the cracked wharf.

Meanwhile, a police chief in Port-au-Prince has appealed for help to tackle criminals who escaped when the earthquake wrecked the main prison.

Inspector Aristide Rosemont, of the Cit Soleil slum area, said a large number of armed gang members had been robbing and looting since the prison escape.

About 5,000 prisoners broke out of the capital's main jail after the walls collapsed, and to date only 14 have been re-arrested.