Disastrous earthquake in Haiti; desperation, violence follow

STAR/TRIBUNE
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - Food and water trickled to the stricken people of Haiti on Saturday, as a global aid operation struggled with frictions and confusion over how to bring relief to the crumbled, earthquake-ravaged nation. Only a fraction of relief supplies was reaching increasingly desperate Haitians who lack food, clean water and shelter. Reports of isolated looting and violence intensified as Saturday night approached, and there were reports of Haitians streaming out of the capital.

Still, recovery and aid efforts were widening. And even the distribution problems in the country stemmed in part from good intentions, aid officials said: Countries around the world were responding to Haiti's call for help as never before. And they are flooding the country with supplies and relief workers that its collapsed infrastructure and nonfunctioning government are in no position to handle.

Haitian officials instead are relying on the United States and the United Nations, but coordination is posing a critical challenge, aid workers said. An airport hobbled by only one runway, a ruined port whose main pier splintered into the ocean, roads blocked by rubble, widespread fuel shortages and a lack of drivers to move the aid into the city are compounding the problems.

Haiti's government alone has already recovered 20,000 bodies, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Saturday. A final toll of 100,000 would "seem to be the minimum," he said. The initial Red Cross estimate was 45,000 to 50,000.

Desperation was growing. On a back street in Port-au-Prince, a half-dozen men ripped water pipes off walls to suck out the few drops inside. "This is very, very bad, but I am too thirsty," one said. Outside a warehouse, hundreds of Haitians simply dropped to their knees when workers for the agency Food for the Poor announced they would distribute rice, beans and other supplies. "They started praying right then and there," said project director Clement Belizaire. The aid official was overcome by the tragic scene. "This was the darkest day of everybody living in Port-au-Prince," he said.

President Obama announced Saturday that former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton would lead a national drive to raise money to help the survivors. Later Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Port-au-Prince and met with President Rene Preval. Her plane brought soap, bottled water and other supplies.

A U.N. spokeswoman declared the quake the worst disaster the international organization has ever faced, since so much government and U.N. capacity in the country was demolished. In that way, Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, it's worse than the cataclysmic Asian tsunami of 2004: "Everything is damaged."

Troops from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division began setting up an aid station on a golf course in an affluent part of the city, but they had no supplies to hand out yet, and Capt. John Hartsock said it would be another two days before they could start distributing food and water. "We've got to wait until we've got enough established so we can hand it out in a civilized fashion," he said.

Many, though, cannot wait. A violent scuffle broke out among several hundred people jostling to be first in line as three U.S. military helicopters were landing at the golf course with food and water. The chopper pilots decided it was too dangerous to remain and took off with their precious cargo still inside. "People are so desperate for food that they are going crazy," said an accountant who was among the crowd.

Scuffles also erupted at a downtown stadium transformed into a rescue center as Navy helicopters dropped food rations and Gatorade. The worst violence broke out in a central warehouse district, where at least 1,000 rioters with makeshift weapons fought over whatever goods they could loot from shuttered houses and shops. Witnesses said the police left as things got worse. Fred Lavaud, who works on Preval's security detail, described scenes of women who had received food being assaulted. "The problem is there's no control," he said.