Search teams in Haiti yesterday refused to abandon hope of finding more survivors of the massive Jan. 12 earthquake after two children were pulled alive from the rubble in 24 hours.
More than eight days after the devastating tremor, which killed at least 75,000 and left 1 million homeless, rescuers said they could not rule out the possibility of some victims still being alive in the debris.
And they said the powerful 6.1 aftershock that shook Haiti on Wednesday could have dislodged masonry giving fresh opportunities to free any last remaining survivors.
“The aftershock could have made the structures subside, but it might have also freed people trapped between two pieces of concrete,” French firefighter Gilles Perroux said.
As the focus of aid efforts turned to the vast task of providing food, water, medicine and shelter to an increasingly desperate population, rescuers said chances of survival were slim but not impossible.
“On the eighth day, is anyone alive? We believe, or else we would not be here. While we are in the country we will stay hopeful,” another French rescuer, Fabrice Montagne, said.
Experts say victims can still pull through if they are not too badly wounded, have found an air pocket and have something to eat or drink.
Two children were pulled from the wreckage of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. A five-year-old boy was found in the wreckage of his home, while neighbors dragged out an 11-year-old girl from under rubble in another part of the city.
“It truly is a miracle, she came back to life bit by bit. She is blessed by the gods,” said Dominique Jean, a surgeon working at a field hospital set up by French aid groups.
Meanwhile, workers are carving out mass graves on a hillside north of Port-au-Prince, using earthmovers to bury 10,000 quake victims in a single day as relief workers warn the death toll could increase.
Clinics have 12-day backlogs, untreated injuries are festering and makeshift camps housing survivors could foster disease, experts said.
“The next health risk could include outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory tract infections and other diseases among hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in overcrowded camps with poor or nonexistent sanitation,” said Greg Elder, of Doctors Without Borders.
Hoping to assess the scope of the crisis, World Food Programme chief Josette Sheeran planned to visit Haiti yesterday, as did EU aid chief Karel De Gucht.
The death toll is estimated at 200,000, Haitian government figures relayed by the European Commission show, with 80,000 buried in mass graves. The commission estimates 2 million homeless, up from 1.5 million, and says 250,000 are in need of urgent aid.
In the wasteland of Titanyen, workers on Wednesday said the macabre task of handling the never-ending flow of bodies was traumatizing.
“I have seen so many children, so many children. I cannot sleep at night and, if I do, it is a constant nightmare,” said Foultone Fequiert, 38, his face covered with a T-shirt against the overwhelming stench.
The dead stick out at all angles from the mass graves — tall mounds of chalky dirt, the limbs of men, women and children frozen together in death.
“I received 10,000 bodies yesterday alone,” Fequiert said.
Workers say they have no time to give the dead religious burials or follow pleas that bodies be buried in shallow graves from which loved ones might eventually retrieve them.
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