No help in sight as the hellish stench of death grows

[FarCenter]

They were bloated and rotting in the hot sun, many thrown together in a macabre embrace. I stared appalled, not daring to breathe, at more than 1,000 abandoned dead outside this devastated city’s central mortuary, enveloped in a hellish stench of death.

A few yards away, I watched as hundreds of listless men, women and children, on filthy mats and bloodstained sheets, lay in the heat with broken limbs, beset by flies, still untreated since Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake.

In the streets of central Port-au-Prince, people scrambled with bare hands at the concrete and rubble that had once been their homes, some just to retrieve loved ones they knew were dead. There was not an aid truck or an ambulance in sight.

Here in Port-au-Prince, where an estimated 50,000 Haitians were killed and 300,000 left homeless, anger was mounting yesterday amid frustration and disbelief that food, medicine and foreign rescue workers had still not materialised, nearly four days after the disaster.

Aid workers, still struggling to deliver the food, water and medical supplies so desperately needed, warned that more security was needed as the Haitians’ grief and shock began to turn to rage and blame. Last night most of the shops in the city had been looted, while the UN world food programme said that its warehouses had been ransacked for supplies.

<SNIP> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6990499.ece

[BunkerHill24]

1. mark my word, this is the worst neglected disaster in the history of the world

...we already have men/woman/children still dying; pulled out off the rubble by the local population bare hands after four days. This is complete cluster fuck, imo.

[tekisui]

2. It is a failed state without a functioning government or infrastructure.

It is not 'neglected', it is logistical hell and a perfect storm of disaster compounded by extreme poverty.

In Bam, in 2003, the city was similarly leveled. It was a city of 40,000 or so. Port au Prince is 3 million. Bam is in a functioning state, Iran, with a functioning military and emergency responders. After 5 days, they were still trying to get their hands around the problem. People were still dying.

[FarCenter]

3. It is probably going to get a lot worse -- for example, fuel supplies

In google maps, there appears to be one tanker pier and tank farm on the coast just west of the airport. It is probably for jet fuel as well as diesel and gasoline.

There is another on the coast west of Port au Prince in Carrefour, but it is smaller and closer to the earthquake's epicenter.

If these ports are out of commission and if the tanks have ruptured, fuel for transportation will run short very soon and things will grind to a halt.

Some relief flights have landed at the airport without enough fuel to take off and refuel elsewhere. This is very bad.

[BunkerHill24]

4. We airlifted supplies to Germany after the allies devastation in that country

....we have failed Haiti....we allowed them to starve five days, and bury their dead without head-count. We humiliated an entire nation.

[msongs]

5. so how much aid have you delivered, being an expert on the situation and all? hmm nt

[BunkerHill24]

9. of what i gathered from CNN and and other International News...ZERO..so far.

[kestrel91316]

8. It has been little more than 3 days. Your desire for instant gratification

is understandable, but relief agencies have to function in this pesky thing called the REAL WORLD.

If you think you have all the answers and can do better, stop with the fucking typing and get your ass down to Haiti to help.

[roamer65]

6. Unless something is done very quickly...

the urban areas will have to be evacuated. Diseases will soon be rampant otherwise.

[FarCenter]

7. There were pictures of people walking out of the city.

There appears to be a large lake to the east along the Dominican Republic border.

The other flat land is northwest along the coast.

While there are some springs in the city, people should be walking to where there is water.

[LatteLibertine]

10. Looting of the UN Warehouse

was exaggerated according to them.

http://www.wavy.com/dpps/news/world_news/un-looting-limited-in-haiti-most-food-aid-found-jgr_3188734

I can't imagine what it must be like to have all those horrible things around them at once. Plus you are deprived of food, water, shelter and subjected to 80+ temps.

Overall most in Haiti are behaving with dignity. It is also worth noting the jail was thrown down in the quake, so many of its troublemakers were released.

[FarCenter]

11. Looters roam Haiti streets

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,26594438-5005962,00.html
Article from: Agence France-Presse
January 16, 2010 08:18am
MACHETE-wielding looters brought more terror to Haiti streets overnight as US troops poured into the quake-ravaged nation to start streaming tons of aid to a traumatised people.

Three days after Tuesday's earthquake, anger and frustration mounted in the ruined capital city of two million people desperate for food and water supplies amid the stench of corpses left rotting in the tropical sun.

A vanguard of the 10,000 US troops being deployed to Haiti took control of the airport, clogged with tons of relief supplies, and began the first mass distributions of aid seeking to quell any threat of violence.

"As long as the people are hungry and thirsty, as long as we haven't fixed the problem of shelter, we run the risk of riots," warned Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, after a visit to the capital Port-au-Prince.

Haitian officials said 50,000 people had been killed and 1.5 million left homeless in the Caribbean nation, one of the poorest countries in the world, which has long witnessed violence and bloodshed.

Desperate citizens tried to fill an apparent vacuum in the nation's leadership, as UN officials on the ground pleaded for more medical and food aid for survivors.

"Men suddenly appeared with machetes to steal money," said Evelyne Buino, a young beautician, after a long night in a neighborhood not far from the ruined city center. "This is just the beginning."

"Organize neighborhood committees to avoid chaos!" radio Metropole implored residents, "to prevent people looting shops and houses."

<SNIP>