Haiti - earthquake

Rescuers rush to scene of Haiti earthquake

Article published on the 2010-01-13 Latest update 2010-01-13 17:29 TU

A church in Port-au-Prince was destroyed after the earthquake struck
(Credit: Reuters)

The International Red Cross has unlocked emergency funds and planned to bring urgent relief to survivors of the massive earthquake that shook the capital, while various countries have announced they are sending aid, rescuers and funding.

The immediate aid for families will be supplemented by relief supplies from the International Red Cross' regional disaster response centre based in Panama, said spokesman Jean-Luc Martinage.

"The most urgent needs at this time are search and rescue, field hospitals, emergency health, water purification, emergency shelter, logistics and communications," he added.

Six experts from the IRC are flying in to Haiti to support the Haitian Red Cross. They will also be working with European Union experts on the ground.

"You can expect from the scale of the damage that there's going to be serious impact," Anita Teeson, Deputy Director for the UK wing of the United Nations Childrens' Fund (Unicef), told RFI.

"As soon as you have a breakdown in the basic systems of roads and water and electricity, that's the trigger for a lot of very, very basic survival needs."

The damage to Haiti's infrastructure will make it doubly hard for rescuers to reach people, Teeson warns.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that a humanitarian assessment team is on its way to help Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake, while UK aid agency Oxfam said its emergency response team was based in Haiti - so they are already on the ground and ready to respond.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is sending two planes from Latin America to carry emergency food supplies to Haiti.