Haiti Prime Minister begs for earthquake aid
At least 150,000 people killed
Haiti's Prime Minister begged donors yesterday to back the rebuilding of his quake-hit country and boost international aid as hundreds of thousands of people fought for survival in the rubble.
Nearly two weeks after the worst recorded disaster in the Americas killed at least 150,000 people, a conference of foreign creditors in Montreal heard that it would take at least 10 years to rebuild the stricken Caribbean nation.
As bulldozers cleared more corpse-filled buildings in the centre of the flattened capital Port-au-Prince, Haitians expressed both hope and skepticism about the emergency meeting of donor countries in Montreal.
"The country is ravaged, I ask myself how it can be rebuilt after this catastrophe. The Haitian government is very corrupt," said Gesnel Faustin, 29, living in a tent outside the destroyed presidential palace.
"But if the United States, France and Canada get together for reconstruction, it will work."
In Montreal, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the top priority was to "satisfy the vital needs of victims like food and water, shelter and health care" but that longer-term needs were huge.
"I just want to say that the people of Haiti will need to be helped to face this colossal work of reconstruction," Mr Bellerive told officials including his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Mr Harper said rebuilding Haiti would take "at least 10 years of hard work" following the 7.0-magnitude quake which struck on January 12.
Oxfam and The World Council of Churches called for the cancellation of Haiti's 890 million dollars of foreign debt.
The UN said yesterday that it has so far received pledges of more than 270 million dollars in emergency relief funding for Haiti, representing nearly half of its target.
In ravaged Port-au-Prince, Health Minister Alex Larsen said 90,000 bodies had already been counted and the final toll was expected to be around 150,000, with around one million homeless.
But the country's communications minister said 150,000 bodies had already been collected - the differing figures underscoring the disorder gripping the Haitian government. With the search for buried survivors officially over, one rescue team's hopes of success 13 days after the quake were dashed when signs of life picked up by radar turned out to be a false alarm caused by a worm-filled body.
Rescuers have saved 133 people from the debris, including a man who survived for 11 days on cola and snacks.
Looters continued to plague Haiti's wrecked commercial areas but in less-affected districts residents tried to return to some kind of normality yesterday, with people going to work and shops reopening.
The UN said more than 235,000 Haitians have taken advantage of free buses to flee the filthy conditions in Port-au-Prince for more hygienic camps outside the capital.
Mr Larsen said tents were being readied for 400,000 quake victims at mini-villages outside the capital that will initially hold 20,000 people, and in the long term accommodate around one million.
But the mass exodus is putting a huge burden on small towns like Saint Marc, some 80 kilometres from the capital, where 10,000 refugees were lodging with friends, strangers or in churches.