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Haiti earthquake: UN says worst disaster ever dealt with
Predictions of the death toll from the Haitian earthquake have risen to 200,000 as mounting desperation at lack of aid threatens to tilt the country into anarchy.
By Philip Sherwell in New York and Colin Freeman
Published: 7:44PM GMT 16 Jan 2010
The United Nations says the disaster is the worst it has ever dealt with Photo: REUTERS
With up to three million survivors still cut off from outside rescue efforts, the United Nations said the disaster was the worst it had ever dealt with.
Aid officials fear a lapse into all-out lawlessness in coming days unless US troops can get through with vital food, medicine and water deliveries, which are being hampered by the sheer scale of devastation. There were continued incidents of looting, and isolated reports of rescue workers being stoned by angry crowds.
The UN's warning came as the full picture of the horror in the flattened capital of Port au Prince emerged. Haitian ministers claimed the body count could rise far beyond the 50,000 estimate made by the Red Cross officials on Friday, saying that 50,000 bodies had already been buried. Trucks piled high with corpses delivered them to mass graves outside the stricken city, with thousands more still lying uncollected on the streets or buried under heavy rubble.
"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," said interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."
If that casualty count is confirmed, it would make Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake one of the ten deadliest on record. The death toll would also rival that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed roughly 250,000 lives. However, officials with knowledge of both incidents said the Haitian disaster - which hit a country already barely functional - posed an infinitely tougher relief challenge.
"This is a historic disaster," said UN spokesman Elisabeth Byrs, whose own organisation has lost 36 local staff in the earthquake. "We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory. It is like no other."
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Predictions of the death toll from the Haitian earthquake have risen to 200,000 as mounting desperation at lack of aid threatens to tilt the country into anarchy.
By Philip Sherwell in New York and Colin Freeman
Published: 7:44PM GMT 16 Jan 2010
The United Nations says the disaster is the worst it has ever dealt with Photo: REUTERS With up to three million survivors still cut off from outside rescue efforts, the United Nations said the disaster was the worst it had ever dealt with.
Aid officials fear a lapse into all-out lawlessness in coming days unless US troops can get through with vital food, medicine and water deliveries, which are being hampered by the sheer scale of devastation. There were continued incidents of looting, and isolated reports of rescue workers being stoned by angry crowds.
The UN's warning came as the full picture of the horror in the flattened capital of Port au Prince emerged. Haitian ministers claimed the body count could rise far beyond the 50,000 estimate made by the Red Cross officials on Friday, saying that 50,000 bodies had already been buried. Trucks piled high with corpses delivered them to mass graves outside the stricken city, with thousands more still lying uncollected on the streets or buried under heavy rubble.
"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," said interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."
If that casualty count is confirmed, it would make Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake one of the ten deadliest on record. The death toll would also rival that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed roughly 250,000 lives. However, officials with knowledge of both incidents said the Haitian disaster - which hit a country already barely functional - posed an infinitely tougher relief challenge.
"This is a historic disaster," said UN spokesman Elisabeth Byrs, whose own organisation has lost 36 local staff in the earthquake. "We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory. It is like no other."
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