Haitian President René Préval says the earthquake that rocked his country has killed thousands of people and left Port-au-Prince, the capital city, in ruins.
“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,” he told the Miami Herald. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”
Préval told the paper Wednesday he has been stepping over dead bodies and he estimated thousands of people were killed. But he did not provide an official number.
“We have to do an evaluation,” Préval said, describing the scene as “unimaginable.”
“All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe,” he said.
Shattered communication systems in the Caribbean country made it impossible to immediately determine the number of casualties from the Tuesday afternoon quake, but an International Red Cross official estimated that three million people in the impoverished country of nine million may have been affected and could need emergency aid.
UN supplies funding
Paul Conneally said it would take a day or two to get a clear picture of the number of dead and injured, as well as the damage.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed for massive aid for Haiti and announced that the United Nations is releasing $10 million from its emergency funds.
“There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian-assistance emergency and that a major relief effort will be required,” he said.
Ban said the earthquake has had a devastating impact on Port-au-Prince, while other areas of Haiti appear to be largely unaffected.
“Buildings and infrastructure were heavily damaged throughout the capital. Basic services such as water, electricity, have collapsed almost entirely,” he said.
Aftershocks also continued to rattle the capital.
The United Nations said at least five members of its peacekeeping mission were killed as the mission headquarters in Port-au-Prince collapsed and over 100 are missing, including the Tunisian diplomat in charge of the mission.
It was also reported that eight Chinese, four Brazilian and three Jordanian peacekeepers were killed.
At least 55 Canadians, including 50 police officers from Montreal, serve with the UN in Haiti. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said he could not confirm any Canadian casualties, although 6,000 Canadian citizens live in Haiti.
Simon Schorno, a spokesman with the International Committee of the Red Cross, told The Associated Press that finding and rescuing survivors will be a priority, and aid workers will also help hospitals cope with casualties and establish clean water sources.
He said the 7.0 magnitude quake had caused “massive destruction in all the main neighbourhoods” of Port-au-Prince.
“Haitian Red Cross staff are trying to do what they can but are completely overwhelmed, so there’s no structured response at this point.”
Officials feared hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed in the quake. The National Palace was badly damaged and thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.
Worldwide relief efforts have begun in earnest, with countries pledging to provide aid, including rescue workers, doctors and supplies.
U.S. President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, adding that the U.S. commitment to its hemispheric neighbour will be unwavering.
“We have to be there for them in their hour of need,” Obama said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada “stands ready to provide any necessary assistance to the people of Haiti during this time of need.”
Government officials are also considering whether to deploy the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) — Canada’s team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel, which provides help to areas affected by disaster for up to 40 days.
Other nations — from Iceland to Venezuela — said they would start sending aid workers and rescue teams. Cuba said its existing field hospitals in Haiti had already treated hundreds of victims. The United Nations said Port-au-Prince’s main airport was “fully operational” and open to relief flights.
The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., centred 16 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of eight kilometres, the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti, on the island of Hispaniola.
The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said Tom Jordan, a quake expert at the University of Southern California. The quake’s power and proximity to Port-au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.
“It’s going to be a real killer,” he said.
Most of Haiti’s people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability, the country has no basic construction standards.
Tuesday’s quake was also felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but no major damage was reported. In eastern Cuba, houses shook, but there appeared to be no significant damage.
