UN to evacuate Haiti quake survivors

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Joined: June 2009
Location: Arizona
Hundreds of thousands of Haitian quake survivors are fleeing the severely dilapidated Port-au-Prince, as the government plans to move nearly a half-million others to safer ground on the outskirts of the capital.

The UN believes that as many as 472,000 people are living in more than 500 squalid campsites scattered across the Haitian capital.

And the U.S. Agency for International Development says another 200,000 people have fled the city by bus, on swamped ferries and by foot since the 7.0-magnitude Jan. 12 disaster. It says at least 100,000 have fled to Gonaives, a city northwest of Port-au-Prince that was hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2008.

The survivors who remain in the capital are living under makeshift tarps and tents, without access to water or sanitation -- conditions that health authorities say put them at risk of disease.

Foreign engineers have started levelling land on the edges of Port-au-Prince, so that new tent cities can be erected for up to 400,000 people.

The government says its people will be better off once they move, a voluntary process that should begin as soon as the end of the month.

"They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities," Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval, said Thursday.

But aid agencies are concerned that it may not be possible to move survivors into new camps as quickly as the Haitian government is suggesting.

"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 International Organization for Migration's mission chief in Haiti.

Relief challenges

The challenge for relief workers and aid agencies remains the delivery of food, water, supplies and medical services to the many people in need, a full 10 days after the quake killed an estimated 200,000 people.

The Haitian government believes another 250,000 people were injured in the Jan. 12 disaster, and two million remain homeless.

Aftershocks continue to rumble the ground and Thursday marked the first day that no survivors were found alive inside piles of rubble in Port-au-Prince.

CTV's Washington Bureau Chief, Paul Workman, said aid efforts are improving each day, but the demand is still overwhelming.

"It's getting better, but of course again, if you're an injured Haitian, you're pretty frustrated. You just want treatment, food and water now," he told CTV's Canada AM from Port-au-Prince.

Doctors have warned that people are dying of sepsis from untreated wounds and have warned of potential outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory-tract infections and other communicable diseases.

"A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations, since their wounds are so infected," said Brynjulf Ystgaard, a Norwegian surgeon at a Red Cross field hospital.

Amputees are becoming a more frequent site, as survivors slowly get treated for injuries suffered during the devastating quake.

"It turns out the doctors are saying the same thing -- that there may have been as many as 200,000 amputations in this country, a huge number creating a sort of whole generation of Haitian amputees," Workman said.

John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, said aid agencies are making plans for prolonged work in Haiti.

"Increasingly, we need to think about shelter, camps, where people are going to be more the next six to12 months," Holmes told CTV News Channel from New York.

"Because they are just living on the streets, or in open spaces at the moment. If it starts to rain seriously, we're going to have a real problem. So, that's going to be the big focus for the next few weeks."

Port repairs

Also Thursday, the U.S. military began turning its attention to a damaged industrial port in Port-au-Prince, which is key to receiving incoming aid shipments and to the quake-ravaged capital's long-term recovery.

The city's main port was severely damaged in the devastating Jan. 12 quake.

Since then, only four ships have been able to dock at the port. Unloading has become hazardous there because of huge cracks running through the dock. The cranes located onsite are no longer useable, some tipping dangerously into the sea.

Workman said the port is currently at about 10 per cent capacity.

It is unclear how long it will take members of the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard to get the port fully up and running.

Local businessman George Jeager Junior said he will shift his operations to Cap Haitien, a remote second city far to the north.

"I wouldn't even ask my workers to risk it, I don't trust it," he said, referring to the use of the damaged port in Port-au-Prince.

Because it will take up to 12 hours to bring in goods to Port-au-Prince through the alternative route in Cap Haitien, Jeager Junior expects the price of goods to soar for the next year. Rice, for example, could triple in cost, up to $100 for a 50-kilogram bag.

At a second, privately-owned port on the edge of the notorious Cite Soleil slum, the quake destroyed about one-quarter of the terminal's infrastructure. That has left oil tankers unable to dock, which has severely hampered incoming fuel shipments.

In addition to the problems with the ports, the Port-au-Prince airport is under-equipped and can receive no more than 140 flights per day -- while a waiting list of 1,400 international relief flights waits for their chance to help out on the ground.

Posts: 631
Joined: June 2009
Location: Arizona

Posts: 1610
Joined: April 2009
Location: Puerto Rico
I feel bad about that. And I live in Puerto Rico, which means Haiti is like a brother

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