Haiti chaos hampers aid delivery; death toll rises
PORT-AU-PRINCE. January 20. KAZINFORM Relief workers say pockets of violence in Haiti's devastated capital are hindering a slow increase in much-needed aid delivery, and some residents have banded together to protect the few possessions they have left; Kazinform refers to China Daily.
As thousands of others head to the countryside, people in one hillside Port-au-Prince district blocked off access to their street with cars and asked local young men to patrol for looters.
"We never count on the government here," said Tatony Vieux, 29. "Never."
A week after the magnitude-7.0 quake struck, Tuesday dawned with new potential for reinforcements to aid in security and disaster relief. The United Nations Security Council was expected to approve additional peacekeeping forces. Some 2,000 US Marines who arrived in the region a day earlier were parked offshore on ships.
But the scope of catastrophe had widened dramatically. The latest casualty report, from the European Commission citing Haitian government figures, doubled previous estimates of the dead to approximately 200,000, with some 70,000 bodies recovered and trucked off to mass graves.
The port remains blocked. Distribution of food, water and supplies from the city's lone airport to the needy are increasing but still remained a work in progress, frustrating many survivors who sleep in the streets and outdoor camps of tens of thousands. European Commission analysts estimate 250,000 were injured and 1.5 million were made homeless; Kazinform cites China Daily.
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