Desperate residents face a fifth day with little food, water or medical care as rubble and a ruined infrastructure prove a barrier to troops and rescue teams. Clinton arrives, meets with Preval
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Mexico City and Washington
Relief workers labored today to get more of the world's help into the devastated neighborhoods of Haiti's earthquake-damaged capital, where desperate residents faced a fifth day with scant food, water and medical care for the throngs of injured.
Aid shipments, U.S. troops and rescue workers continued to pour into Port-au-Prince's clogged airport, but the challenge remained getting help to the victims in the face of rubble-locked streets, smashed infrastructure and the breathtaking scale of destruction and need.
Signs of a big U.S. push were increasingly evident. Americans were now running the Port-au-Prince airport and U.S. helicopters ferried emergency supplies from an American aircraft carrier off the coast.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Haiti today aboard a flight that carried an aid shipment, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the impoverished Caribbean nation since the 7.0 earthquake left the capital in ruins.
Haitian officials have said the death toll could exceed 100,000 and might reach twice that number. The State Department has confirmed the deaths of 15 U.S. citizens, a diplomat and 14 private individuals, according to the Associated Press.
The United Nations said today that the body of Haiti mission chief Hedi Annabi had been found in the rubble of its headquarters in Port-au-Prince, which collapsed in the earthquake.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the bodies of Annabi's deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, and the acting police commissioner, Doug Coates, have also been found.
On a field near Port-au-Prince's airport with a view of the runway, small crowds of Haitians watched as U.S. military helicopters ferried supplies to the airport, a frenetic hive of activity as flights arrived carrying supplies and search-and-rescue teams and crowds of civilians lined up for hours to catch charter flights out.
The U.S. military has a history of coming into Haiti at times of crisis, prompting hopes among locals that their bedraggled country somehow will miraculously be transformed with new jobs and development and long-term security -- hopes that went unfulfilled time after time.
Nevertheless, this time, there appeared a genuine desire to see U.S. forces come back -- but perhaps again with unrealistic expectations of the U.S. role. Scrawled in black letters across a concrete slab amid rubble was a greeting and plea: "Welcome the U.S. Marines. We need some help".
"We want them to rebuild the nation," said Charlme Prevenel, a teacher, who seemed certain that it was just a matter of days before U.S. troops were on the streets to control traffic, rebuild broken schools and hospitals, and create jobs. "In the past, they came to take power. This time, they are coming to help," Prevenel said, as a chopper thundered nearby.
Clinton, accompanied by USAID Director Rajiv Shah met with Haitian President Rene Preval and other leaders and discuss the relief effort with U.S. officials in Port-au-Prince.
Clinton said she and Preval agreed to work closely on relief and restoring basic services, such as telecommunications, electricity and transportation. She said the two would issue a joint statement tomorrow outlining what comes next.
In remarks she said were directed to the Haitian people, Clinton said, "We are here at the invitation of your government to help you. As President Obama has said, we will be here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead".
Clinton flew to Puerto Rico, then transferred to a C-130 transport plane that also carried emergency food and water rations and supplies, such as toothpaste and underwear, for U.S. Embassy personnel, according to wire service reports.
Although the one-day trip was largely to show support for Haiti, Clinton told reporters en route said she hoped to learn what more the United States can do.
Clinton said the United States did not intend to supplant Haitian authorities and U.N. peacekeepers in providing security amid growing reports of looting and other problems. But she said it would help if the Haitian lawmakers passed an emergency decree granting the Preval government extended powers, such as imposing a curfew and other measures to keep order.
Clinton said such powers could then be delegated to the United States, according to Reuters, which cited a pool reports. State Department officials said the military had plans to make use of Cap-Haitien, in northern Haiti, as a container port to expand the flow of goods. The main seaport in Port-au-Prince was closed due to quake damage.
In Washington, President Obama met with his two immediate predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, whom he has designated to lead what is meant to be a massive private fundraising effort for Haiti.
Bush, a Republican, and Clinton, a Democrat, have started a website, www.clintonbushhaitifund.org, to collect contributions from Americans and donors around the world.
"These two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and the world," Obama said of the former presidents flanking him in the Rose Garden. "In a moment of need, the United States stands united".
Amid an atmosphere of growing desperation in Port-au-Prince, Obama counseled patience while the international relief effort moves forward.
"There's going to be fear, anxiety, a sense of desperation in some areas," Obama said. But, he added, "we are going to be making slow and steady progress".
Bush, who was widely criticized for his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, urged Americans to give money as the most effective answer to the immediate crisis facing Haitians.
"I know a lot of people want to send blankets and water -- just send your cash," Bush said. He promised to make sure "that your money is spent wisely".
Clinton, who is also the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, said the earthquake will require expanding plans for long-term rehabilitation for Haiti that were underway before the catastrophe. The U.N. has estimated that the quake damaged or flattened up to half of the buildings in hard-hit areas.
But the short-term challenge of moving people and huge aid shipments into the city through the damaged airport was proving daunting enough.
France lodged a protest after two relief flights were turned away by American military air-traffic controllers who have taken over managing flights in and out of the airport, the AP reported.
Preval urged donors to avoid squabbles.
"This is an extremely difficult situation. We must keep our cool to do coordination and not to throw accusations at each other," Preval said today after coming out of a meeting with donor groups and nations, the AP said.
Aid organizations looked for detours around the overwhelmed airport, with one runway, and quake-damaged seaport. Some were shuttling supplies overland from the Dominican Republic next door, but roads are poor and travel slow.
Rescuers digging in the rubble of Port-au-Prince still held out hope of finding survivors, despite dwindling odds. U.S. officials said search-and-rescue operations would continue over the weekend, even as the focus was shifting to humanitarian relief.
"We're moving here from help being on the way to delivering that help," Denis McDonough, chief of staff of the National Security Council, told reporters during a conference call this morning.
The U.S. government has dispatched more than 400 firefighters to Haiti -- one of 24 international search-and-rescue teams, Tim Callahan, senior regional advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, said during the conference call.
"There are many places to search, but the teams are doing an incredible job to search schools, houses, hospitals," Callahan said. He said food and water would be handed out from 14 distribution points.
The U.N. World Food Program said it hoped to distribute food to 40,000 people today and was expecting the arrival tonight of a shipment relayed from El Salvador that is to bring 20.5 metric tons of ready-to-eat meals for residents who lack cooking facilities.
The organization is trying to raise $279 million to feed 2 million people and provide logistical help for six months.
At the airport today, newly arrived rescue teams walked along the tarmac with cadaver-sniffing dogs prancing excitedly alongside. Some wounded lay on stretchers waiting to be flown out.
One seriously injured woman on a stretcher inside the cool terminal begged medical workers around her to take her outside, into the heat and deafening noise, because she feared the wall beside her might collapse. A medical worker tried gently to explain that the building was solid, and that they could not move her until her flight was ready to leave.
U.S. Air Force Capt. Dustin Doyle said the Air Force had taken charge of managing the airfield to ensure that planes carrying everything from forklifts to earth-moving equipment, food and medical aid landed, unloaded quickly and took off again to make room.
"The first few days some planes just couldn't land" due to crowding on the ramp, Doyle said. He said the U.S. Army would oversee moving the materials to a staging point either inside the airport premises or somewhere nearby, and from that point, aid agencies would pick them up for distribution.
On Friday, the leading edge of a massive relief effort gained a toehold around the Haitian capital, with the U.S. military taking control of the airport and helicopters ferrying supplies from an aircraft carrier positioned off the coast. But deep within the city's neighborhoods, residents fended for themselves -- evacuating those who could go, caring for those who couldn't and putting to rest those who would move no more.
Aside from a few police officers trying to control crowds at a gas station or direct traffic, there was virtually no sign of any authority in Port-au-Prince. The capital seemed remarkably calm three days after being devastated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, despite the growing frustration of people with no food, water or shelter.
The United Nations estimated that in the worst-affected areas of Port-au-Prince, as many as half the buildings were damaged or destroyed.
More than 100 members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division were in place. U.S. officials said the military deployment would include 4,000 to 5,000 sailors on ships, including the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, plus 3,000 soldiers and 2,000 Marines on the ground.
The U.N. appealed for $550 million to provide food, water and shelter to the victims. At least 37 U.N. personnel, part of a large, long-standing contingent in Haiti, were killed in the quake and 300 others still were unaccounted for, officials said.
Some aid made it through the obstacles. Water was being distributed from trucks in certain areas, a U.N. team distributed water-purification tablets, and French aid workers visited tent cities to see what people needed most.
Michelle Chouinard, Haiti director for Doctors Without Borders, said the group hoped to set up medical tents and perform surgeries. For now, though, its workers could offer only the crudest help: bandages and some floor space or furniture for the seriously injured.
Laura Blank of the aid group World Vision, which was expecting 18 metric tons of aid to arrive on a flight Friday evening, said that like most Haitians, the agency was having problems finding fuel.
"If we don't have gas in the cars, we can't get anywhere, and who has time to sit in a gas line all day?" Blank said as workers at the agency compound moved boxes of latex gloves and gauze as well as plastic bags containing clothes and hygiene supplies out of a warehouse where they had been stashed for hurricane season. The agency began distributing the items to nearby churches and clinics after the quake, and was one day away from running out.
Even the incoming aid, such as portable cooking kits and containers for water, would be of limited help if they could not find water to fill the containers, and the proper food for the cooking kits.
"The biggest crisis obviously is how do you get the resources all over the place?" said David Lipin of San Carlos, Calif., commander of the 40-member disaster medical assistance team sent in from California.
Officials and analysts said the speed with which aid is delivered will be key to preventing people from turning violent in their desperation -- at a time when Haiti's government is almost nowhere to be seen.
Alex Puig, a security expert for International SOS, a Philadelphia-based risk management firm working in Haiti, said some violence was likely, despite the presence of U.S. forces. "It's going to be a tough, long road, " he said.
The scenes of devastation prompted Haiti's deposed former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to offer to return. Speaking to reporters in South Africa, where he lives in exile, Aristide said he felt a need to try to save the lives of victims, but he refused to take questions on whether he planned to fly to Haiti without an official invitation.
"We are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time, to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the economy, moving from misery to poverty with dignity," Aristide said, reading a statement in an almost inaudible whisper.
Aristide, 56, became Haiti's first democratically elected leader in 1991 but was ousted in a coup led by the army later that year. He regained power in 1994 and was reelected president in 2000, before being toppled again in a violent 2004 coup. Aristide took asylum in South Africa but could face legal charges if he returned to Haiti.
Los Angeles Times
