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Haiti earthquake updates: live blogThe United States is moving to take charge of a country devastated by Tuesday's earthquake as anger mounts at delays to the arrival of international rescue teams and aid supplies. Follow live updates
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People carry a body to a truck in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
7.28am:
Six US ships and 5,500 soldiers and marines are on their way to Haiti, to join search and rescue teams and a military unit that has cleared the airport, according to AP.
But time is running is out as international rescue efforts continue to struggle to overcome obstacles in delivering aid.
The obstacles include a lack of space at the airport, a shortage of fuel supplies for planes to return, blocked roads and bridges, and reports of aid workers, police and officials preoccupied with looking for their own families.
Desperate Haitians are blocking roads with corpses to demonstrate their frustration, according to Reuters. Port-au-Prince is becoming a tomb, writes Rory Carroll.
In a special edition of the Guardian Daily podcast, Suzanne Goldenberg, our Washington-based environment correspondent and the Observer's foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont, discuss Haiti's difficulty in dealing with natural disasters and the prospects for reconstruction.
Link to this audio
Meanwhile pledges of aid continue to be made. A UN-compiled list includes commitment from more than 40 countries, as well as dozens of private companies.
7.56am:
Concern is growing for a missing British woman, Ann Barnes, a PA to the UN police commissioner in Haiti, according to the BBC.
The Foreign Office says it is aware of these reports and is checking on the Britons missing in Haiti.
8.23am:
One of Oxfam's workers in Haiti, Amedee Marescot, a Haitian born business manager, has died of injuries he suffered when the charity's office collapsed.
Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's International Director, said: "He was a dedicated and passionate member of staff and will be greatly missed by his colleagues. These are dark days for the people who live and also work to help the poor communities of Haiti."
8.36am:
The LA Times has put together a horrifying audio slide show on the aftermath of the earthquake. "There are too many deaths to count...bodies are just stacked up outside," Carolyn Cole reports from Port-au-Prince.
8.50am:
Troy Livesay, a Christian NGO worker, whose has been blogging harrowing updates on the impact of the disaster, has just uploaded this raw video footage of a tour of the devastated areas and refugee camps.
9.04am:
Five people, including three Americans, have been pulled out from the rubble of the Hotel Montana, according to a tweet from Fireside Int, who has been posting regular updates from Haiti since Tuesday.
9.11am:
Ann Barnes' sister-in-law has posted an appeal for information about Ann on CNN's iReport. It includes a picture of her.
The New York Times has also launched an initiative to track down missing people in Haiti. Thousands of people have already contacted the Red Cross's Family Links project for information about loved ones.
9.30am:
CNN has footage of its medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a trained doctor, treating a 15-day-old baby.
9.41am:
By last night US teams had rescued just nine people from the rubble, according to USAID.
10.02am:
Another site has been set up to locate missing people. It includes an extensive photo gallery and details on almost 3,000 people.
10.06am:
The Department for International Development has posted to Flickr photographs of a UK urban search and rescue team arriving last night in Port-au-Prince.
10.08am:
UN officials in Haiti who survived the quake, including Kim Bolduc, the chief humanitarian coordinator for the mission, explain the difficulty of getting aid to the worst hit areas. Nine minutes into the video conference they give details of the UN staff pulled from the rubble both dead and alive. After about 13 minutes they also describe their own experiences of the earthquake. "I was just hoping it would stop," Bolduc said.
10.46am:
There are disturbing uncomfirmed reports that bodies stacked on the streets are starting to burst.
10.48am:
Warehouses of the World Food Programme have been looted and food shops in Port-au-Prince have been cleaned out, a spokeswoman told AP.
Emilia Casella stressed that looting was normal in emergency situations.
10.54am:
Wounded Haitians have been streaming into hospitals in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, according to the New York Daily News.
"There have been more than 500 today - so, so many," anesthesiologist Gilberto Rojas told the paper.
"We have been doing so many amputations, seeing so many people with abdominal trauma," he added.
11.25am:
Bella Baita has been anxiously seeking word on her brother. Finally she tweets the good news: "My brother, w/ minor injuries and 4 more pulled from the rubble of Hotel Montana after 55 hours, a miracle. Joy for our family."
11.36am:
Prospery Raymond, from Christian Aid Haiti, said: "I do not have words to describe what I have seen. I have never seen so many dead bodies." The Red Cross in Haiti estimates that around 50,000 have died.
11.39am:
Gangs are taking over Port-au-Prince, according to this video from the Washington Post.
11.42am:
The American Psychological Association has issued advice for reducing distress caused by following coverage of the earthquake (hat tip:Huffington Post). The guidance is aimed at people awaiting news of loved ones, but the association says it could apply to anyone overwhelmed by the news:
• Take a news break. Watching endless replays of footage from the disaster can make your stress even greater. Although you will want to keep informed – especially if you have loved ones in Haiti – taking a break from watching the news can lessen your distress.
• Control what you can. There are routines in your life that you can continue such as going to work or school and making meals. It is helpful to maintain these routines and schedules to give yourself a break from constantly thinking about the earthquake.
• Engage in healthy behaviours. Eat well-balanced meals, engage in regular exercise like going for a long walk, and get plenty of rest. Bolstering your physical well-being is good for your emotional health and can enhance your ability to cope.
• Keep things in perspective. While an earthquake can bring tremendous hardship and loss, remember to focus on the things that are good in your life. Persevere and trust in your ability to get through the challenging days ahead.•
• Find a productive way to help if you can. Many organisations are set up to provide various forms of aid to survivors. Contributing or volunteering is a positive action that can help you to make a difference.
• Strive for a positive outlook. Many people who have experienced tragedy find that they grow in some respect as a result of persevering through the hardship. Over time, people can discover personal strengths and develop a greater appreciation for life.
11.57am:
More YouTube footage from Livesay. This shows injured people waiting for treatment in the yard of the Child Hope clinic. Some of the injured are laid up on makeshift tables.
12.03pm:
"Let's stop calling them looters" and start admitting that we're failing at distributing aid. They are "survivors, not criminals" tweets Fireside Int from Haiti.
12.10pm:
Save the Children reports that 13 of its staff in Haiti are still unaccounted for.
12.14pm:
Cuba has agreed to allow the US airforce to fly through its airspace to help reduce aid flight times from Miami, Reuters reports.
12.54pm:
The UN is to launch a flash appeal for $550m to help the survivors, a spokesman told Reuters.
1.01pm:
My colleague Ed Pilkington arrived in Haiti this morning and has just filed this from his mobile phone.
The advice at the border could not have been more clear. "You are about to enter on on disaster zone and the prisons have emptied" the police guard told us on the Dominican Republic side of the border, leaning into our van.
"People are desperate for the water you are carrying. Be very careful."
About a mile into Haiti the early evidence of the earthquake began to emerge. A convoy of three ambulances streamed past us, claxons blazing in the opposite direction.
At midnight at the border last night police told us that there has been a steady stream of wounded people pouring over the border in search of the superior health care in the neighbouring country.
The paranoia that has rippled out from the epicentre of the earthquake was evident even two hours drive from the border on the Dominican side. At a roadside cafe where we stopped for rice and beans there were three armed guards patrolling outside.
1.16pm:
Amber Lynn Munger has written three urgent blogs posts today. Writing under the name Rightsbasedhaiti she seeks advice on what to do with medical waste at a makeshift hospital that she has helped set up. And she explains the need for structural engineers, vehicles and petrol.
She also described how Haitians continue to sing through the crisis.
This morning we woke up to aftershocks around 5am. Again, the tremors were met with singing. The singing is almost as forceful as the quakes. They are still singing now with all of their force – Hallelujah! It is as if they are saying "we are not afraid!" These people are so beautiful that I cry even now, as my ears are filled with their voices and I am writing these lines, hoping that the power will hold out. There are no others like the Haitian people.
The singing was all night. There were other aftershocks throughout the night. But this singing now is the singing that will also meet the sun as it comes up to show us all of the damage once again. Bittersweet sunrise.
1.34pm:
There's a new Guardian interactive guide to the difficulties on getting aid into Haiti.
A New York Times map/diagram describes the topography of Port-au-Prince and the worst hit areas.
2.00pm:
"There's some aid starting to get through to people. But if you see it in relation to the scale of the suffering, it will look very limited," Florian Westphal, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva told the New York Times in an informative piece about the logistical problems faced by aid agencies.
2.08pm:
"People need water, they need food, they need shelter – and they need supplies pretty quickly. We saw tonnes and tonnes of aid arriving at the airport yesterday. We haven't seen it arrive on the streets where people need it yet," Sarah Smith reports for Channel 4 news.
In a full transcript of a phone report she adds: "Hopefully today will be the day that people start getting the things that they desperately need, because if they don't get them soon the mood here could start to turn very ugly."
2.12pm:
"People are getting impatient," Oxfam's Louis Belanger reports from Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. But he says aid, water and heavy lifting equipment have now arrived. "Now it's all about delivery... you're talking about helping hundreds of thousands of people without landlines, cell phones, the internet or electricity."
2.27pm:
Gordon Brown has turned to Twitter to help raise funds for the Disasters Emergency Committee's Haiti appeal. Later today the DEC will broadcast its appeal on television.
The DEC Twitter feed said: "Hi, it's Gordon Brown. I'm visiting the HQ of DEC sending a message of thanks to all donors. Remember aid you give will get through."
2.33pm:
There's been a clarification about looting from the World Food Programme.
"Apparently there were unconfirmed reports of looting taking place, but once our teams got down to the dockside they were able to see that there was some mistake," spokeswoman Caroline Hurford told the BBC.
2.37pm:
"What to do with all these bodies that are starting to decompose. People are starting to wear masks," Richard Morse tweets from Haiti.
"Bodies are being burned," he says in another update.
2.47pm:
AP interviews an angry Haitian frustrated at the delays to aid. "Security is becoming a priority," it reports [Warning distressing content].
2.53pm:
The writers group Pen has announced that its president in Haiti, Georges Anglade and his wife Mireille Neptune, were killed in the earthquake.
Global Voices has compiled a list of renowned Haitians who have died in the tragedy.
3.08pm:
Hundreds of US paratroopers have arrived, according to AP. More than 300 troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport overnight and others have arrived in nearby waters on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
3.25pm:
"There are bodies everywhere, and hundreds of thousands of survivors are living in very close proximity to the dead. The potential for sickness and disease is staggering. We need to see a massive international aid effort arriving as soon as possible," warns Jean-Claude Fignole, ActionAid's Haiti country director.
He adds: "I am standing just across the road from a children's school which collapsed with hundreds of children inside, but there is no clean-up happening."
3.31pm:
"It's increasingly dire, especially for children," warns Kate Conrad an aid worker for Save the Children in Haiti. She's concerned about continuing aftershocks and the threat of pneumonia. "People are tired, they're scared, they're hungry, they're thirsty," she says.
3.42pm:
My colleague Simon Rogers looks how satellite images have helped analyse the disaster.
3.47pm:
Time magazine features photographs of corpses being piled on the streets to block traffic.
Ioan Grillo writes that there are "pyres of burning tires that incinerate cadavers that have remained unattended too long in the dust and heat, lit by residents afraid that the carrion will attract prowling dogs and endanger children."
3.55pm:
6,000 tons of food aid will be distributed shortly, a UN spokeswoman told AP. Emilia Casella also down played her earlier reports of looting (10.48am).
"The food is there," she said. "They are also working on getting a peacekeeper contingent to secure the locations."
(That's it from me. James Sturcke is about to take over)
4.25pm
The UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has just confirmed the $550m flash appeal.
"Most of the money will go on urgent needs. Food and water are in critically short supply. We need tents and more tents. We urgently need more medical supplies and more medical personnel."
He added the food aid operation was being scaled up and would be capable of feeding one million people within a fortnight and two million within a month from 15 distribution centres.
Asked about looting he said:
"This UN peacekeeping operations and police are taking charge of law and order in the city but I suspect there will be some frustrations felt by the general population. We are concerned about that possibilty and taking all precautionary measures. Until now we have not seen widespread looting."
4.30pm
The search and rescue phase of the operation was continuing even though 72 hours had now passed since the quake and searchers were trying to save as many lives as possible, Ban added.
Fifty per cent of Port-au-Prince had been destroyed or damaged by the earthquake, he said.
He said UN peacekeepers had been taking control of the city but the Haitian government was "regrouping".
4.35pm
Running on Reuters:
The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Haiti may be as high as 50,000 to 100,000 people, the Pan American Health Organisation said on Friday.
"A variety of sources are estimating the numbers (at) between 50,000 and 100,000," Jon Andrus of PAHO, the Americas arm of the World Health organization, told a news briefing.
4.37pm
Obama had a half-hour phone call with the Haitian president, René Préval, today. According to AP:
Obama told Préval that the world has been devastated by the loss and suffering in Haiti, and pledged U.S. support for both the immediate recovery effort and reconstruction. Preval said that the needs in his country are great, but aid is now making its way to the Haitian people.
Préval ended the call with a message to the American people, saying "from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the Haitian people, thank you, thank you, thank you."
The White House has said Obama tried to contact Préval several times this week, but could not because of communication disruptions following the quake.
5.20pm
Tara Livesay has been updating the family blog with details of evacuating her children to the US. Referring to the general evacuation process she writes:
Many people were angry at not being able to bring bags. I got very angry listening to that as CNN inside the Embassy droned on and on about all the trapped all the dead all the hurting. I think a bag of possessions is hardly something to fight over. There are lives hanging in the balance and there is no end in sight.
That's it for the live blog for this evening. The main news story will be updated during the evening with further developments. Thanks for reading.
Comments (18)
Buzz up!
Digg it
This page will update automatically every minute: On | Off
People carry a body to a truck in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
7.28am:
Six US ships and 5,500 soldiers and marines are on their way to Haiti, to join search and rescue teams and a military unit that has cleared the airport, according to AP.
But time is running is out as international rescue efforts continue to struggle to overcome obstacles in delivering aid.
The obstacles include a lack of space at the airport, a shortage of fuel supplies for planes to return, blocked roads and bridges, and reports of aid workers, police and officials preoccupied with looking for their own families.
Desperate Haitians are blocking roads with corpses to demonstrate their frustration, according to Reuters. Port-au-Prince is becoming a tomb, writes Rory Carroll.
In a special edition of the Guardian Daily podcast, Suzanne Goldenberg, our Washington-based environment correspondent and the Observer's foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont, discuss Haiti's difficulty in dealing with natural disasters and the prospects for reconstruction.
Link to this audio
Meanwhile pledges of aid continue to be made. A UN-compiled list includes commitment from more than 40 countries, as well as dozens of private companies.
7.56am:
Concern is growing for a missing British woman, Ann Barnes, a PA to the UN police commissioner in Haiti, according to the BBC.
The Foreign Office says it is aware of these reports and is checking on the Britons missing in Haiti.
8.23am:
One of Oxfam's workers in Haiti, Amedee Marescot, a Haitian born business manager, has died of injuries he suffered when the charity's office collapsed.
Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's International Director, said: "He was a dedicated and passionate member of staff and will be greatly missed by his colleagues. These are dark days for the people who live and also work to help the poor communities of Haiti."
8.36am:
The LA Times has put together a horrifying audio slide show on the aftermath of the earthquake. "There are too many deaths to count...bodies are just stacked up outside," Carolyn Cole reports from Port-au-Prince.
8.50am:
Troy Livesay, a Christian NGO worker, whose has been blogging harrowing updates on the impact of the disaster, has just uploaded this raw video footage of a tour of the devastated areas and refugee camps.
9.04am:
Five people, including three Americans, have been pulled out from the rubble of the Hotel Montana, according to a tweet from Fireside Int, who has been posting regular updates from Haiti since Tuesday.
9.11am:
Ann Barnes' sister-in-law has posted an appeal for information about Ann on CNN's iReport. It includes a picture of her.
The New York Times has also launched an initiative to track down missing people in Haiti. Thousands of people have already contacted the Red Cross's Family Links project for information about loved ones.
9.30am:
CNN has footage of its medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a trained doctor, treating a 15-day-old baby.
9.41am:
By last night US teams had rescued just nine people from the rubble, according to USAID.
10.02am:
Another site has been set up to locate missing people. It includes an extensive photo gallery and details on almost 3,000 people.
10.06am:
The Department for International Development has posted to Flickr photographs of a UK urban search and rescue team arriving last night in Port-au-Prince.
10.08am:
UN officials in Haiti who survived the quake, including Kim Bolduc, the chief humanitarian coordinator for the mission, explain the difficulty of getting aid to the worst hit areas. Nine minutes into the video conference they give details of the UN staff pulled from the rubble both dead and alive. After about 13 minutes they also describe their own experiences of the earthquake. "I was just hoping it would stop," Bolduc said.
10.46am:
There are disturbing uncomfirmed reports that bodies stacked on the streets are starting to burst.
10.48am:
Warehouses of the World Food Programme have been looted and food shops in Port-au-Prince have been cleaned out, a spokeswoman told AP.
Emilia Casella stressed that looting was normal in emergency situations.
10.54am:
Wounded Haitians have been streaming into hospitals in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, according to the New York Daily News.
"There have been more than 500 today - so, so many," anesthesiologist Gilberto Rojas told the paper.
"We have been doing so many amputations, seeing so many people with abdominal trauma," he added.
11.25am:
Bella Baita has been anxiously seeking word on her brother. Finally she tweets the good news: "My brother, w/ minor injuries and 4 more pulled from the rubble of Hotel Montana after 55 hours, a miracle. Joy for our family."
11.36am:
Prospery Raymond, from Christian Aid Haiti, said: "I do not have words to describe what I have seen. I have never seen so many dead bodies." The Red Cross in Haiti estimates that around 50,000 have died.
11.39am:
Gangs are taking over Port-au-Prince, according to this video from the Washington Post.
11.42am:
The American Psychological Association has issued advice for reducing distress caused by following coverage of the earthquake (hat tip:Huffington Post). The guidance is aimed at people awaiting news of loved ones, but the association says it could apply to anyone overwhelmed by the news:
• Take a news break. Watching endless replays of footage from the disaster can make your stress even greater. Although you will want to keep informed – especially if you have loved ones in Haiti – taking a break from watching the news can lessen your distress.
• Control what you can. There are routines in your life that you can continue such as going to work or school and making meals. It is helpful to maintain these routines and schedules to give yourself a break from constantly thinking about the earthquake.
• Engage in healthy behaviours. Eat well-balanced meals, engage in regular exercise like going for a long walk, and get plenty of rest. Bolstering your physical well-being is good for your emotional health and can enhance your ability to cope.
• Keep things in perspective. While an earthquake can bring tremendous hardship and loss, remember to focus on the things that are good in your life. Persevere and trust in your ability to get through the challenging days ahead.•
• Find a productive way to help if you can. Many organisations are set up to provide various forms of aid to survivors. Contributing or volunteering is a positive action that can help you to make a difference.
• Strive for a positive outlook. Many people who have experienced tragedy find that they grow in some respect as a result of persevering through the hardship. Over time, people can discover personal strengths and develop a greater appreciation for life.
11.57am:
More YouTube footage from Livesay. This shows injured people waiting for treatment in the yard of the Child Hope clinic. Some of the injured are laid up on makeshift tables.
12.03pm:
"Let's stop calling them looters" and start admitting that we're failing at distributing aid. They are "survivors, not criminals" tweets Fireside Int from Haiti.
12.10pm:
Save the Children reports that 13 of its staff in Haiti are still unaccounted for.
12.14pm:
Cuba has agreed to allow the US airforce to fly through its airspace to help reduce aid flight times from Miami, Reuters reports.
12.54pm:
The UN is to launch a flash appeal for $550m to help the survivors, a spokesman told Reuters.
1.01pm:
My colleague Ed Pilkington arrived in Haiti this morning and has just filed this from his mobile phone.
The advice at the border could not have been more clear. "You are about to enter on on disaster zone and the prisons have emptied" the police guard told us on the Dominican Republic side of the border, leaning into our van.
"People are desperate for the water you are carrying. Be very careful."
About a mile into Haiti the early evidence of the earthquake began to emerge. A convoy of three ambulances streamed past us, claxons blazing in the opposite direction.
At midnight at the border last night police told us that there has been a steady stream of wounded people pouring over the border in search of the superior health care in the neighbouring country.
The paranoia that has rippled out from the epicentre of the earthquake was evident even two hours drive from the border on the Dominican side. At a roadside cafe where we stopped for rice and beans there were three armed guards patrolling outside.
1.16pm:
Amber Lynn Munger has written three urgent blogs posts today. Writing under the name Rightsbasedhaiti she seeks advice on what to do with medical waste at a makeshift hospital that she has helped set up. And she explains the need for structural engineers, vehicles and petrol.
She also described how Haitians continue to sing through the crisis.
This morning we woke up to aftershocks around 5am. Again, the tremors were met with singing. The singing is almost as forceful as the quakes. They are still singing now with all of their force – Hallelujah! It is as if they are saying "we are not afraid!" These people are so beautiful that I cry even now, as my ears are filled with their voices and I am writing these lines, hoping that the power will hold out. There are no others like the Haitian people.
The singing was all night. There were other aftershocks throughout the night. But this singing now is the singing that will also meet the sun as it comes up to show us all of the damage once again. Bittersweet sunrise.
1.34pm:
There's a new Guardian interactive guide to the difficulties on getting aid into Haiti.
A New York Times map/diagram describes the topography of Port-au-Prince and the worst hit areas.
2.00pm:
"There's some aid starting to get through to people. But if you see it in relation to the scale of the suffering, it will look very limited," Florian Westphal, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva told the New York Times in an informative piece about the logistical problems faced by aid agencies.
2.08pm:
"People need water, they need food, they need shelter – and they need supplies pretty quickly. We saw tonnes and tonnes of aid arriving at the airport yesterday. We haven't seen it arrive on the streets where people need it yet," Sarah Smith reports for Channel 4 news.
In a full transcript of a phone report she adds: "Hopefully today will be the day that people start getting the things that they desperately need, because if they don't get them soon the mood here could start to turn very ugly."
2.12pm:
"People are getting impatient," Oxfam's Louis Belanger reports from Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. But he says aid, water and heavy lifting equipment have now arrived. "Now it's all about delivery... you're talking about helping hundreds of thousands of people without landlines, cell phones, the internet or electricity."
2.27pm:
Gordon Brown has turned to Twitter to help raise funds for the Disasters Emergency Committee's Haiti appeal. Later today the DEC will broadcast its appeal on television.
The DEC Twitter feed said: "Hi, it's Gordon Brown. I'm visiting the HQ of DEC sending a message of thanks to all donors. Remember aid you give will get through."
2.33pm:
There's been a clarification about looting from the World Food Programme.
"Apparently there were unconfirmed reports of looting taking place, but once our teams got down to the dockside they were able to see that there was some mistake," spokeswoman Caroline Hurford told the BBC.
2.37pm:
"What to do with all these bodies that are starting to decompose. People are starting to wear masks," Richard Morse tweets from Haiti.
"Bodies are being burned," he says in another update.
2.47pm:
AP interviews an angry Haitian frustrated at the delays to aid. "Security is becoming a priority," it reports [Warning distressing content].
2.53pm:
The writers group Pen has announced that its president in Haiti, Georges Anglade and his wife Mireille Neptune, were killed in the earthquake.
Global Voices has compiled a list of renowned Haitians who have died in the tragedy.
3.08pm:
Hundreds of US paratroopers have arrived, according to AP. More than 300 troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport overnight and others have arrived in nearby waters on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
3.25pm:
"There are bodies everywhere, and hundreds of thousands of survivors are living in very close proximity to the dead. The potential for sickness and disease is staggering. We need to see a massive international aid effort arriving as soon as possible," warns Jean-Claude Fignole, ActionAid's Haiti country director.
He adds: "I am standing just across the road from a children's school which collapsed with hundreds of children inside, but there is no clean-up happening."
3.31pm:
"It's increasingly dire, especially for children," warns Kate Conrad an aid worker for Save the Children in Haiti. She's concerned about continuing aftershocks and the threat of pneumonia. "People are tired, they're scared, they're hungry, they're thirsty," she says.
3.42pm:
My colleague Simon Rogers looks how satellite images have helped analyse the disaster.
3.47pm:
Time magazine features photographs of corpses being piled on the streets to block traffic.
Ioan Grillo writes that there are "pyres of burning tires that incinerate cadavers that have remained unattended too long in the dust and heat, lit by residents afraid that the carrion will attract prowling dogs and endanger children."
3.55pm:
6,000 tons of food aid will be distributed shortly, a UN spokeswoman told AP. Emilia Casella also down played her earlier reports of looting (10.48am).
"The food is there," she said. "They are also working on getting a peacekeeper contingent to secure the locations."
(That's it from me. James Sturcke is about to take over)
4.25pm
The UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has just confirmed the $550m flash appeal.
"Most of the money will go on urgent needs. Food and water are in critically short supply. We need tents and more tents. We urgently need more medical supplies and more medical personnel."
He added the food aid operation was being scaled up and would be capable of feeding one million people within a fortnight and two million within a month from 15 distribution centres.
Asked about looting he said:
"This UN peacekeeping operations and police are taking charge of law and order in the city but I suspect there will be some frustrations felt by the general population. We are concerned about that possibilty and taking all precautionary measures. Until now we have not seen widespread looting."
4.30pm
The search and rescue phase of the operation was continuing even though 72 hours had now passed since the quake and searchers were trying to save as many lives as possible, Ban added.
Fifty per cent of Port-au-Prince had been destroyed or damaged by the earthquake, he said.
He said UN peacekeepers had been taking control of the city but the Haitian government was "regrouping".
4.35pm
Running on Reuters:
The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Haiti may be as high as 50,000 to 100,000 people, the Pan American Health Organisation said on Friday.
"A variety of sources are estimating the numbers (at) between 50,000 and 100,000," Jon Andrus of PAHO, the Americas arm of the World Health organization, told a news briefing.
4.37pm
Obama had a half-hour phone call with the Haitian president, René Préval, today. According to AP:
Obama told Préval that the world has been devastated by the loss and suffering in Haiti, and pledged U.S. support for both the immediate recovery effort and reconstruction. Preval said that the needs in his country are great, but aid is now making its way to the Haitian people.
Préval ended the call with a message to the American people, saying "from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the Haitian people, thank you, thank you, thank you."
The White House has said Obama tried to contact Préval several times this week, but could not because of communication disruptions following the quake.
5.20pm
Tara Livesay has been updating the family blog with details of evacuating her children to the US. Referring to the general evacuation process she writes:
Many people were angry at not being able to bring bags. I got very angry listening to that as CNN inside the Embassy droned on and on about all the trapped all the dead all the hurting. I think a bag of possessions is hardly something to fight over. There are lives hanging in the balance and there is no end in sight.
That's it for the live blog for this evening. The main news story will be updated during the evening with further developments. Thanks for reading.
Comment