Wednesday was the Port-au-Prince second night of nightmare amid the rubble after the violent earthquake that struck Haiti, turning entire neighborhoods into cemeteries open, while international aid began to arrive.
The lifeless bodies and wounded littered the overcrowded capital of the poorest country in the Americas, while UN forces were searching the ruins and tried to disperse the looters.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who would spend a night under the stars, in total darkness, without power, 24 hours after the earthquake that destroyed part of the city.
The violence of the quake, a magnitude 7, the highest in the country for over two centuries, fueled fears of a dreadful record: Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean-Max Bellerive, said he feared being “well above the 100,000 “deaths. President René Préval had spoken before thousands of deaths. “Parliament collapsed (…). The hospitals have collapsed. Some schools are filled with corpses,” said René Préval, who also urged the international community to help.
The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who cut short a trip abroad to focus on this crisis, said the results “will be one of the highest in recent years in terms of loss of life” .
The Secretary General of UN, Ban Ki-moon said that the earthquake would require a major relief effort, which may need some 3 million people were affected, adding that he would go on site “as soon as possible.”
The Executive and the United Nations hit hard. Haitian ministers are missing and the Speaker of Parliament would be in the rubble of the meeting. The headquarters of the Stabilization Mission in Haiti ONUen, which has about 11,000 people in the country collapsed. The UN chief in Haiti was killed in the collapse, according to the Haitian president, deaths that the UN has not confirmed. 16 members of the mission is officially dead and some 150 others missing.
Paris is looking for its part “actively” fifty French. 200 people are under the rubble of a grand hotel, Montana, according to a French minister. Huge military means have started to arrive.
While President Barack Obama promised a U.S. intervention “rapid, coordinated and energetic,” a building of the U.S. Coast Guard arrived in the Bay of Port-au-Prince, followed by a second building.
A nuclear aircraft carrier was to be American to Haiti on Thursday and Washington also plans to deploy a hospital ship.
Rescuers French, Canadian, Venezuelan, Chilean, or Jordan, with dogs and tons of emergency supplies were expected in a race against time to get out of the rubble for survivors.
Doctors without Borders were sending an inflatable hospital with a capacity of 100 beds. Mexico has announced three planes and a hospital ship with 70 tons of food as well as hundreds of rescuers, doctors and technicians.
Call for donations
The earthquake was strongly disrupted communications in a country already rudimentary infrastructure, making it virtually impossible to transport the injured in hospital still standing.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched an appeal to raise 10 million dollars to fund the temporary shelter, water, medical care and psychological support .
“Even a dollar or two” may suffice, launched by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, also special envoy of UN Haiti.
The Haitian communities desperately sought news of their relatives. “We are a people brave, stay upright, has launched Haitians through the tears, the Canadian Governor General Michaëlle Jean, herself of Haitian origin.
In the U.S., celebrities, led by Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean and among which there were a couple of actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have announced their engagement and called for individual donations.
The U.S. federal police (FBI) has however warned against Internet scams, advising Americans to “vigilant” on calls for donations.