A week after Haiti quake, aid for all is still elusive

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The world still can’t get enough food and water to the hungry and thirsty one week after an earthquake shattered Haiti’s capital. The airport remains a bottleneck, the port is a shambles. The Haitian government is invisible, nobody has taken firm charge, and the police have largely given up.

Even as U.S. troops landed in Seahawk helicopters Tuesday on the manicured lawn of the National Palace, the colossal efforts to help Haiti are proving inadequate because of the scale of the disaster and the limitations of the world’s governments. Expectations exceeded what money, will and military might have been able to achieve so far in the face of unimaginable calamity.

“God has abandoned us! The foreigners have abandoned us!” yelled Micheline Ursulin, tearing at her hair as she rushed past a large pile of decaying bodies.

Three of her children died in the quake and her surviving daughter is in the hospital with broken limbs and a serious infection.

Rescue groups continue to work, even though time is running out for those buried by the quake. A Mexican team created after that nation’s 1985 earthquake rescued Ena Zizi, 69. She had survived a week buried in the ruins of the residence of Haiti’s Roman Catholic archbishop, who died. Other teams pulled two women from a collapsed university building.

But most efforts are focused on getting aid to survivors.

“We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don’t know whose responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon,” said Sophia Eltime, a 29-year-old mother of two who has been living under a bedsheet with seven members of her extended family. She said she had not eaten since Jan. 12.

It is not just Haitians questioning why aid has been so slow for victims of one of the worst earthquakes in history — an estimated 200,000 dead, 250,000 injured and 1.5 million homeless. Officials in France and Brazil and aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders have complained of bottlenecks, skewed priorities and a crippling lack of leadership and coordination.

“TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS NEED EMERGENCY SURGICAL CARE NOW!!!!!” said a press release from Partners in Health, co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the deputy U.N. envoy to Haiti. “Our medical director has estimated that 20,000 people are dying each day who could be saved by surgery.” No details were provided on how the figure was determined.

The reasons are varied:

UBoth national and international authorities suffered great losses in the quake, taking out many of the leaders best suited to organize a response;

UWoefully inadequate infrastructure and a near-complete failure in telephone and Internet communications complicate efforts to reach millions forced from homes turned into piles of rubble;

UFears of looting and violence keep aid groups and governments from moving as quickly as they’d like;

UPre-existing poverty and malnutrition put some at risk even before the quake hit.

Governments have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid, and thousands of tons of food and medical supplies have been shipped. But much remains trapped in warehouses, diverted to the neighboring Dominican Republic, or left hovering in the air. The nonfunctioning seaport and impassable roads complicate efforts to get aid to the people.

Aid is being turned back from the single-runway airport, where the U.S. military has come under criticism for poorly prioritizing flights, although the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday it had raised the facility’s daily capacity from 30 flights before the quake to 180 on Tuesday.

The World Food Program said more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations had been distributed in Haiti by Tuesday, only a fraction of the 3 million people thought to be in desperate need.