Haiti Earthquake Today: News Update on Haiti, Exodus & Aid

Good question but from my understanding it was the US Military the managed to get the Haiti airport open so the plane could actually land, not 100% sure on that though

What Haiti needs now: a personal visit from Obama -- Jonathan Zimmerman, Christian Science Monitor

The Underlying Tragedy -- David Brooks, New York Times

Averting Chaos in Haiti -- Washington Post editorial

Help Haitians Help Haiti -- New York Times editorial

Helping Haiti Help Itself -- Los Angeles Times editorial

Haiti's Streets Called 'Tinderbox' as Hunger, Thirst and Anger Grows

Tensions are becoming dangerously high on the streets of Port au Prince as increasingly desperate Haitians search for food and water while tons of supplies remain stuck at the country's airport.

"What's going on? We can't even breathe! Who is helping us?" a man cried out today to an ABC News camera crew. Wearing a yellow bandana over his face and surrounded by other young and angry men, he said, "It takes one night to get the U.S. troops here, you know, it takes just a second for the military to get here."

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More News On the Disaster In Haiti

Haiti Earthquake (Full Coverage) -- Yahoo News
Full Coverage from CBS News -- CBS News
Haiti Earthquake (Full Coverage) -- BBC
Haiti earthquake: News updates -- CNN
Haiti earthquake updates -- The Telegraph
Live: Haiti earthquake - latest updates -- Times Online
Haiti Updates -- The Guardian

Haiti death toll 50,000 to 100,000 - PAHO -- Reuters
US sending 10,000 troops to earthquake-hit Haiti -- BBC

Haiti Relief Efforts: Despair, Panic Set in as Food, Water and Medical Aid Delayed -- ABC News
Frustration over Haiti aid bottlenecks -- Financial Times
Quake survivors' unrest a concern for aid workers -- CTV News
Chaos, desperation in Haiti’s capital as looting hampers aid -- National Post
Desperate Haitians clamor for aid days after quake -- Reuters
Earthquake in Haiti: Desperate for aid, victims' anguish turns to rage, sparks looting -- New York Daily News
UN food warehouses in Haiti looted -- The Australian
Looting on Rise amid Haiti's Growing Desperation -- CBS News
Gangs Armed With Machetes Loot Port-Au-Prince -- CBS
Haiti earthquake: gunshots and panic as locals fight back against looters -- The Telegraph

Massive US ship nears Haiti to join relief effort -- AFP
Haiti Tries to Dig Out as Corpses Pile Up -- Time Magazine
Where to bury the dead a huge challenge -- Sydney Morning Herald
Thousands being buried in mass graves: Haitian president -- CBC News
4000 prisoners loose as Haiti earthquake quake topples jail -- The Australian
US can't contact thousands of Americans in Haiti -- Washington Post
Satellite Photos of Haiti Before and After the Earthquake -- Wired Science
Foreign Policy: The Steep Climb To Haitian Recovery -- NPR

Haiti Earthquake: How You Can Help -- FOX News
AT&T enables $10 text message donations to Haiti -- Business Week
Haiti Quake: How You Can Help -- CBS News
How You Can Help the Earthquake Victims -- ABC News

Wyclef Jean's Haiti Tweets Galvanizing Web -- CBS News
Earthquake in Haiti: Celebrities and fans respond on Twitter [Updated] -- The Envelope
Twitter provides a conduit for news from quake-devastated Haiti -- Mercury News
Haiti Twitter Coverage -- Twitter

At Least 36 U.N. Personnel Confirmed Dead in Haiti; Number Likely to Rise - Margaret Besheer, Voice of America. The U.N. Secretary General says the facts are "grim" in Haiti, after a 7.0 earthquake rocked the Caribbean nation Tuesday. Ban Ki-moon warned that the overall death toll could be very high. Among the scores of dead, at least 36 U.N. military and civilian staff. But that figure could rise dramatically, as some 150 personnel are still unaccounted for nearly 48 hours after the quake. Mr. Ban told reporters that the overall picture on the ground in Haiti still remains "sketchy". He said the first 72 hours are critical in saving survivors, and he is still holding out hope for both Haitians and U.N. personnel trapped beneath the rubble. Some 150 U.N. personnel with the U.N. Stabilization Mission, known as MINUSTAH, are still missing. But all hope is not gone. Overnight, Tarmo Joveer, an Estonian bodyguard, was pulled alive from the wreckage of the mission's 5-story concrete headquarters. "He was extracted from approximately four meters down the rubble," said the U.N. chief. "It was a small, small miracle during the night which brought few other miracles. We will continue to work, to search and rescue as quickly as possible." Mr. Ban said the needs in Haiti are huge and immediate - above all medical supplies, food, water, tents, shovels and heavy equipment.

Eight U.N. Personnel Rescued, Up to 160 Others Missing in Rubble in Haiti - Colum Lynch, Washington Post. Grappling with what appears to be the organization's greatest loss of life in a single incident, United Nations officials said Thursday that 36 U.N. staffers, police and peacekeepers have been confirmed dead and up to 160 remain missing in the rubble of the Haiti earthquake - but eight have been rescued alive from the collapsed U.N. headquarters building and a nearby facility. David Wimhurst, a U.N. spokesman in Haiti, said at least 13 international staff, including volunteers, 19 peacekeepers and four U.N. police died in the earthquake. So far, 13 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of the Christopher Hotel, which served as the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, he said. In addition, nine U.N. police were injured and 18 remain missing out of a force of 2,090 in Haiti, Wimhurst said. Among the peacekeepers, who total more than 7,000 in the country, 26 were injured and 10 are missing, he said. The quake also left 38 U.N. staffers injured, of whom 24 are Haitians. In a closed-circuit news briefing from Port-au-Prince, Wimhurst said he was on the third floor of the headquarters building when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck.

Is the showing of photo's of dead bodies piled on top each other real news value, or does the media turn disasters like Haiti into "Reality TV?" Obama gives speech with ex-presidents Clinton and GW Bush. GW Bush was responsible for destroying Haitian democracy. post.ly/IxPA

The port area of Port-au-Prince should be given priority for repairs so that relief ships can get in. The airport can't handle it. The aid organisations are competing instead of "team work." No kind of co-ordination is going on.

tsk3.. this taking too long.. nah... they must unite. Planning on this things can help a lot on us in the near future... Many more survivors but have no one to help them...sigh*

iLearningglobal

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Desperation In Haiti Amid Chaos And Pleas For More Aid -- Yahoo News/AFP

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Relief workers in Haiti struggled for the fifth day Sunday to assist desperate earthquake survivors amid anger over the chaotic aid effort, as two former US presidents admitted the country's recovery will be long.

Aid continued to trickle in but failed to reach many of those most in need after Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake brought death and misery on an unprecedented scale to the impoverished and dysfunctional Caribbean nation.

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More News On The Disaster In Haiti

Haiti Earthquake (Full Coverage) -- Yahoo News
Full Coverage from CBS News -- CBS News
Haiti Earthquake (Full Coverage) -- BBC
Haiti earthquake: News updates -- CNN
Haiti earthquake updates -- The Telegraph
Live: Haiti earthquake - latest updates -- Times Online
Haiti Updates -- The Guardian

Graphic: Aid to Haiti in limbo -- National Post

Extent of Haiti destruction clear -- BBC
Officials Strain to Distribute Aid to Haiti as Violence Rises -- New York Times
Aid Pours Into Haiti Airport as Relief Workers Struggle to Distribute It -- L.A. Times

Frictions Between Nations Rise Over Struggle of Getting Aid to Haiti -- Washington Post
Haitians Flee Ruined Capital for Shelter in Countryside -- Wall Street Journal
Lack of Medical Facilities Poses Dilemma -- Wall Street Journal
Looting Flares Where Authority Breaks Down -- New York Times
Tens of thousands neglected at quake epicentre -- ABC News (Australia)
Haiti earthquake: Hillary Clinton visits devastated capital -- Times Online
Who's running Haiti? No one, say the people -- Reuters
Helping Haiti: The U.S. Navy Is Ready, But Aid Is Not -- Yahoo News/Time
At Haiti roadblock, a lesson in power dynamics -- L.A. Times
Haiti earthquake: worst disaster ever, says UN -- The Telegraph

Haiti Earthquake: How You Can Help -- FOX News
AT&T enables $10 text message donations to Haiti -- Business Week
Haiti Quake: How You Can Help -- CBS News
How You Can Help the Earthquake Victims -- ABC News

Haiti Twitter Coverage -- Twitter

World Pledges Quake Aid, Haitians Still Waiting -- New York Times/Reuters

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - 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.

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Devastation In Haiti: Put The Pentagon In Charge AIRBORNE ARRIVAL - Troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrive at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after an early morning flight Jan. 16, 2009. As many as 3,500 troops are expected to arrive here in the next few days to begin security the areas for aid drop-off. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III

From Newsweek:

As the international relief effort descends on Haiti, there are certain truths that nobody wants to acknowledge publicly. The first is that few of those still buried under the rubble can be saved. There will, of course, be stories of miracle rescues. But the reality, says Fred Krimgold, earthquake expert at Virginia Tech, is that "a very, very high percentage of the people who are rescued are found in the first few hours. The drop-off is significant after that. By the time the rescue teams and sniffer dogs and fancy equipment arrive, you're really left with the exceptional situations, the freak survivals." Many of those lucky enough to be pulled from the rubble will die too, succumbing to what disaster-relief experts call "crush injuries" from the rubble that entombed them. The toxins these injuries release in the body typically overwhelm the kidneys. Without dialysis, the injured tend to die—and nobody brings dialysis machines to a disaster zone.

Read more ....

God bless you!

Trickle of Aid Reaches Destitute Haitian Quake Survivors - Michael Bowman, Voice of America. U.S. officials say a trickle of international aid is reaching earthquake survivors in Haiti, but humanitarian needs far outpace delivery capabilities due to impassable roads, limited airlift capacity, and other challenges in the wake of last week's catastrophe. Meanwhile, anger and lawlessness have escalated in Port-au-Prince and surrounding communities, as desperation grows. Hunger, thirst, agony and heartbreak have formed a toxic emotional backdrop to Haiti's humanitarian disaster. Nations around the world are sending aid and personnel to Haiti, but nearly one week after the devastating quake struck, only limited quantities of life-saving food and water are reaching a destitute populace. The United States has launched a massive military and civilian relief operation for Haiti that is working to overcome a host of logistical challenges and obstacles. The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rajiv Shah, spoke on ABC's "This Week" program. "We are talking about 3.5 million people in need. We are talking about a significant degradation of what was already relatively weak infrastructure [in Haiti]. No port access, roads are difficult to get around. So what we are now doing is putting in place military assets. The [U.S.] aircraft carrier arrived this week. It has 19 helicopters, and a lot of the transport of commodities and supplies is through helicopters. We are getting more and more out each day," he said.

Rescues Beat Dimming Odds in Haiti but Fall Short of Need - Damien Cave and Deborah Sontag, New York Times. Despite dimming odds, rescue workers pulled more people alive from the rubble - including a 7-year-old girl who survived more than four days eating dried fruit rolls in the supermarket that collapsed around her - as water and emergency aid deliveries improved on Sunday, though not nearly enough to meet Haiti’s desperate need. The mood managed to stay mostly calm, as residents carried leather-bound Bibles to pray outside their ruined churches. But there were reports of more looting and shootings, including of four men who witnesses said were shot by the police on suspicion of looting. There were fewer bodies in the streets, though in some places residents began burning corpses left behind. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, arrived to offer a promise of improvement from his organization, which was itself badly hit by the quake but was still heavily criticized for the slow pace of the emergency response. “I am here with a message of hope that help is on the way,” Mr. Ban told a crowd of Haitians in front of the severely damaged National Palace. On the fifth day after the earthquake, there were signs of improvement, possibly even hope that the worst was passing. Traffic at the airport continued to increase, and there were 27 rescue teams on the ground, with 1,500 people searching for survivors.

Security Fears Mount in Lawless Post-earthquake Haiti - Manuel Roig-Franzia, Mary Beth Sheridan and Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post. Desperate Haitians scrambled Sunday to find food and water and guarded their meager possessions against the advance of looters as the U.S. and other nations struggled to jump-start a sluggish relief effort. Even as Navy and Coast Guard ships arrived offshore, a round-the-clock airlift intensified and additional dignitaries appeared, the frantic victims of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake were growing more fearful as they pleaded for help and security in a lawless city. With massive amounts of aid promised but not yet delivered because of the difficulty of operating in the crippled country, amid what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called "one of the most serious crises in decades," the living banded together outdoors without shelter, sustenance or protection. There was widespread apprehension that, unless the pace of aid distribution quickens, there could be mass violence as hundreds of thousands of people suddenly lacking food, water and electricity begin to compete for scarce resources.

Lynch Mobs Turn on Looters Amid Haiti Aid Crisis - Giles Whittell, The Times. Six days after the Port-au-Prince earthquake large areas of the city remain untouched by the global aid effort as bottlenecks continue to clog the airport and looting threatens to descend into wholesale violence. Convoys of lorries headed for the city’s worst-hit areas last night but there were signs they had come too late to prevent another tragedy, with Haitians turning on each other. Mobile water stations were mobbed by crowds who have lived without basic sanitation for nearly a week. By text message and word of mouth, reports spread of a woman decapitated for whatever she had been carrying near one of the few functioning markets. Police shot and killed a man suspected of looting. Where police failed to intervene, crowds resorted to lynching, leaving fresh bodies on streets just cleared of those left by the earthquake. Some 70,000 bodies have been buried in mass graves and a state of emergency has been declared until the end of January, a Haitian government minister said. President Préval said 3,500 U.S. troops, confined until yesterday to the airport, would fan out to help Haitian and U.N. police to keep order. Yet there was little sign of them in the vast refugee camp near the ruins of the Presidential Palace. Security improved at the camp yesterday, but only briefly, as troops cordoned off a sector for a visit by Ban Ki Moon, the U.N. Secretary-General.

Quake Victims Seek Comfort in Prayers - Tracy Wilkinson and Joe Mozingo and Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times. Haitians bereft of homes and loved ones held Sunday prayers in the streets of their earthquake-ravaged capital while rescue workers continued digging in the ruins for something like a miracle. In front of the broken churches, which in some cases still harbored bodies, worshipers looked to powers beyond their grasp for help. "Don't pray for the dead," boomed Joel St. Amour, preaching outside the Evangelical Baptist Church. "Pray for the living." Before him, 30 worshipers gathered on folding metal chairs under bougainvillea and mimosa trees and sang "How Great Thou Art." The air carried the sickly scent of death. On a day of prayer, earthly concerns such as food, water and security remained at the forefront. Hungry residents jostled for rations that were fitfully making their way into the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. There were scattered reports of looting in the city, but U.S. military officials said the streets were largely calm and that American troops who had been delivering goods were warmly received. Security "is a concern and we are going to have to address it and we are going to have to provide a safe and secure environment in order to be successful with our humanitarian assistance mission," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen said during an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with John King."

I  was horrified  at the time it took anyone to get into  Haiti  to give the basic help. Surely helecopters could have   lowered  the essentials  to  the people, whilst the airfield was being made  good for  planes.Was no-one  there to  arrange a proper place to place bodies away from the living in a respeckful way. plus take photos of the faces for later identification..

It upsets and annoys  me to think they think  the World isn't helping them,  as they  were seeing very little  help getting to them  & were pleading  for the basics on TV.

Im sure basic things can be airlifted in the moment the earthquake stopped , Nations were  all  alert & ready to help them straight away..

Sending in 10,000 armed US troops isn't aid, it's an invasion. Has President of Haiti lost control. He hasn't even addressed the nation?

The death toll and destruction on unprecendented scale in Haiti has failed to awaken the collective conscience of us all.It is painful to watch the photographs,on one hand and on the other politicising human misery.Cuban doctors are there or not is not a polemic we should engage in at this hour when hundreds of thousands need our help.

100 million ready-to-eat meals needed: US paratroopers move beyond capital
Rome (AFP) Jan 18, 2010 - The head of the UN food relief agency launched an appeal Monday for 100 million ready-to-eat meals for the victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake. "We are making a global appeal for meals ready to eat," World Food Programme executive director Josette Sheeran told reporters. "More than 100 million meals are needed over the next 30 days." Several million meals are already "in the pipeli ... more

Haiti quake relief gains pace: aid agencies
Geneva (AFP) Jan 18, 2010 - Aid agencies said a huge international relief operation nearly a week after Haiti's devastating earthquake was gaining pace on Monday, but one warned that survivors were growing increasingly desperate. UN agencies and the Red Cross said field hospitals and food distribution had multiplied in and around the capital Port-au-Prince, where the magnitude 7.0 quake wrought huge destruction, leavin ... more