Haiti earthquake

Lives hang in the balance as death toll rises

Article published on the 2010-01-20 Latest update 2010-01-20 11:34 TU

A Haitian woman outside her tent at a makeshift refugee camp in Port-au-Prince
(Credit: Reuters)

A 25-year-old woman was pulled out alive from the rubble of a supermarket in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night, a full week after Haiti was hit with a massive 7.0 earthquake. Hoteline Losana had no access to food or water for a week, but was "in good form", according to rescuers.

But while reports of the living gave hope to the dire situation, others on the ground, especially outside Port-au-Prince, the capital, said that they had been forgotten.

"This situation is bad, really bad. A lot of people have died, a lot of people are getting killed," said Gary Beaufort, a resident of Léogane, a city west of the capital that has been flattened.

Beaufort told RFI that American missionaries had given local people medication and other supplies the day after the earthquake, but they have received nothing since, and nothing from the Haitian government.

"The city has been forgotten. The countryside is worse. Nothing at all," he said.

"There's a lot of kids starving to death. We need water," he added.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) issued a statement overnight, saying that a vital cargo plane carrying 12 tonnes of medical equipment, drugs, supplies and two dialysis machines, has been turned away from landing in Port-au-Prince three times since Sunday.

"We have had five patients in Martissant health centre die for lack of the medical supplies that this plane was carrying," said Loris de Filippi, MSF's emergency coordinator for Choscal Hospital in Cité Soleil.

"Any time I leave the operating theatre I see lots of people desperately asking to be taken for surgery," he said.

For many of the injured life-saving amputations are needed because they did not get access to treatment immediately after the earthquake.

"We were forced to buy a saw in the market to continue amputations. We are running against time here," de Filippi said.

Again, MSF has asked for priority for medical shipments. De Filippi said that the hospital has no more morphine to give to patients to manage pain.

Those pulled out of the rubble could die from septicemia and "crush syndrome", where damaged muscle tissue releases toxins into the bloodstream and leads to death from kidney failure. This is why life-saving dialysis machines are needed.

Meanwhile, the Haitian government has said that 75,000 people had been killed, 250,000 were injured and one million left homeless in the quake.

US troops have fanned out across Port-au-Prince, as the military ramped up aid operations in a bid to find survivors.

Yesterday paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division descended from helicopters to secure the presidential palace, where a 100-strong squad of soldiers marched to the city's general hospital.

Security remains a priority for both the US and the United Nations, with fears that fights may break out for what little aid is reaching desperate survivors. 

"The situation is completely under control," General Floriano Peixoto Vieira Neto, commander of the UN mission in Haiti, told RFI.

There is "movement of personnel and the amount of people I am seeing on the streets, [these] people are demanding food, water, but according to my perception, it is that it does not consist of anything that can impact the security status."