"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Despite dimming odds, rescue workers pulled more people alive from the rubble — including a 7-year-old girl who survived more than four days eating dried fruit rolls in the supermarket that collapsed around her — as water and emergency aid deliveries improved on Sunday, though not nearly enough to meet Haiti’s desperate need."
"On the fifth day after the earthquake, there were signs of improvement, possibly even hope that the worst was passing. Traffic at the airport continued to increase, and there were 27 rescue teams on the ground, with 1,500 people searching for survivors."
"The best news came in the form of a small voice from deep in a pile of rubble at the Caribbean Supermarket in the Delmas neighborhood, heard overnight late Saturday or early Sunday. As the odds of finding more survivors fell steeply, American and Turkish rescue workers were stunned to discover a small Haitian girl, who proudly told them that she made it through with hope and leathery fruit snacks."
"She was the first of five people to be pulled from the wreckage during a search spanning the weekend, some of whom sent desperate text messages to let loved ones know they were trapped. She was deeply shaken, having been trapped for days in a small space in a devastated market, with death in every aisle. But she had not been pinned down by debris and was not hurt, according to Capt. Joseph Zahralban of the South Florida search and rescue team."
"There were several other reported rescues around the city, including a 2-month-old baby, CNN reported, and Jens Kristensen, a Danish civilian employee of the United Nations peacekeeping forces at the Christopher Hotel, the organization’s headquarters here, where perhaps 100 of its workers remained buried."
"At the airport, American military officials said that waiting times for landing had declined, while traffic had increased. Each day, there are 100 slots for incoming planes — well exceeding the 30 to 35 flights that the airport handled before the earthquake. But in a sign of both Haiti’s needs and the response, even that is not close to handling the number of planes waiting to come in."
"Meanwhile, Col. Cormi Bartal, a doctor in the Israeli Army’s newly established field hospital here, pulled back the flap of a tent serving as the hospital’s pediatric section and pointed to a woman, Guerlande Jean Michel, 24. She identified a sleeping newborn on her cot, one of the first born in the city after the earthquake, and spoke in a halting voice. “This is my child,” said Ms. Jean Michel, a primary school teacher. 'His name is Israel.'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/am... There is a logistical problem which is at the root of why supplies have been slow to reach those in need in Port Au Prince. In the best of conditions, Haiti's infrastructure is hard pressed to support the kind of traffic needed to bring the amount of supplies to the city. Unlike with Katrina, where next to nothing was coming, here there are so many coming in from all over the world that planes are having to circle up to 5 hours before they can land.
The good news is that lives are being saved, and the worst is over. But a lot more work must be done to help care for those on the ground.
I heard someone mention that it will be a while before Haiti gets back to "normal." But normal for the average Haitian is still not good, when you consider the country has 70% unemployment, and that mothers have taken to feeding their children "mudcakes;" literall cakes of mud, just so that the children can have something in their belly.
Unlike with Iraq, the US government "broke" Haiti but never felt any serious responsibility for fixing it. That must change.
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Monday, January 18th 2010 at 1:48PM
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