Zeenews Bureau
Port-au-Prince: World leaders have stepped up to pledge aid to rebuild a devastated Haiti, but on the streets of its wrecked capital quake survivors were still waiting on Sunday for the basics: food, water and medicine.
Four days after a massive quake killed up to 200,000 people international rescue teams were still finding people alive under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince.
Hundreds of thousands of hungry Haitians were desperately waiting for help, but logistical logjams kept major relief from reaching most victims, many of them sheltering in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.
In the widespread absence of authority, looters swarmed over collapsed stores on the city`s shattered main commercial boulevard, carrying off T-shirts, bags, toys and anything else they could find. Fighting broke out between groups of looters carrying knives, ice-picks, hammers and rocks.
Many Haitians streamed out of the city on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed in cars to find food and shelter in the countryside, and flee aftershocks and violence.
Many others crowded the airport hoping to get on planes that left packed with Haitians.
Looting turns violent
But on the streets of Port-au-Prince, where scarce police patrols fired occasional shots and tear gas to try to disperse looters, the distribution of aid appeared random, chaotic and minimal. Downtown, young men could be seen carrying pistols.
And heavily armed gang members who once ran Haiti`s largest slum, Cite Soleil, like warlords returned with a vengeance after the quake damaged the National Penitentiary allowing 3,000 inmates to break out.
"It`s only natural that they would come back here. This has always been their stronghold," said a Haitian police officer in the teeming warren of shacks, alleys and open sewers that is home to more than 300,000 people.
There were jostling scrums for food and water as US military helicopters swooped down to throw out boxes of water bottles and rations. A reporter also saw foreign aid workers tossing packets of food to desperate Haitians.
"The distribution is totally disorganised. They are not identifying the people who need the water. The sick and the old have no chance," said Estime Pierre Deny, standing at the back of a crowd looking for water with his empty plastic container.
Haiti is the Western Hemisphere`s poorest country and has for decades struggled with devastating storms, floods and political unrest. Around 9,000 UN peacekeepers have provided security here since a 2004 uprising ousted one president.
Looting has been sporadic since Tuesday`s earthquake, which flattened large parts of the capital. But it appeared to widen on Saturday as people became more desperate.
Russians rescue girls
Four days after the 7.0 magnitude quake, aftershocks were felt every few hours in the capital, terrifying survivors and sending rubble and dust tumbling from buildings.
Dramatising the need to keep up rescue efforts, a Russian team pulled out two Haitian girls still alive -- 9-year-old Olon Remi and 11-year-old Senviol Ovri -- from the ruins of a house on Saturday.
US rescuers worked through the night to dig out survivors from one collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people could have been trapped inside. They were about to give up, when they were told a supermarket cashier had managed to call someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.
Trucks piled with corpses have been ferrying bodies to hurriedly excavated mass graves outside the city, but thousands of bodies are still believed buried under the rubble.
Nigeria extends help
Nigeria has said it will help Haiti by providing rescue and relief assistance.
Making an announcement in this regard, the west African country`s Minister of Environment, John Odey, said the monumental damage to life and property deserves urgent attention to save the survivors from trauma.
"The Federal Ministry of Environment in collaboration with other relief agencies will work towards providing assistance to affected citizens in Haiti to enable them overcome this period of trauma," he said, adding that Nigeria received the news of the earthquake with so much pain.
Germany to increase humanitarian aid
Germany will increase its humanitarian aid and relief supplies for Haiti to USD 10.7 million in view of the vast damage caused by a devastating earthquake.
The German government announced yesterday that it would raise its emergency aid for immediate relief efforts on the Caribbean island to USD 10.7 from 2.15 million in view of the huge dimension of casualties, destruction and human suffering caused by the earthquake.
A 10-member team of specialists in water purification from the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief has already reached Haiti and they are setting up two water purification plants. These plants could provide drinking water for 60,000 persons daily.
A transport plane carrying a mobile hospital of the German Red Cross and a team of medical specialists and technicians has also been rushed to Haiti.
Meanwhile, the European Union has convened an emergency meeting of the European council of ministers tomorrow to discuss the situation in Haiti and decide further assistance.
(With Agencies` inputs)
