In A Nutshell, Again

Haiti Earthquake

Aid makes it to Haiti, but not onto streets

January 22, 2010 -- Updated 1704 GMT (0104 HKT)


On "Hope for Haiti Now," Anderson Cooper joins Wyclef Jean and George Clooney on Friday for a global telethon to air commercial-free across multiple networks and CNN. At 8 p.m. ET/PT Friday.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Aid is reaching earthquake-torn Haiti, but getting it to the people who need it remains a challenge.

Large quantities of medications, baby formula and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out, according to CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

"It's like everywhere we go, just walking through the airport, outside the airport even, people are saying, 'We need supplies,' " Gupta said.

Gupta found pallets of formula, pain medication and antibiotics standing unattended next to the runway.

U.S. military personnel in a warehouse tent at the airport gave Gupta a trash bag full of supplies to take back to a hospital he had visited earlier but couldn't explain why there seemed to be no organized system for distribution.

"There is stuff here waiting to be taken out, that's a true statement," said Air Force Col. Ben McMullen, deputy commander of the Joint Special Operations Air Component. "Is it a lot? I can't speak to it. I will tell you the reason you got it is that everyone on this side, specifically the U.S. government side, is dedicated to getting as much stuff outside as they can.

"It's a shame, because you would hope that everything could get out there within seconds. But that kind of infrastructure just isn't in place."

Over at the city's port, authorities pushing to clear bottlenecks hope to restore two-way traffic at the south pier sometime Friday.

The magnitude 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished nation on January 12 damaged its capital's north and south piers. Haitian authorities and the U.S. military had restored one-way traffic to the south pier, which is the smaller of the two, by Thursday.

Port-au-Prince's north pier remains unusable.

The bottlenecks have delayed food and medical aid to the estimated 3 million Haitians who have been affected by the quake.

Another aftershock, with a magnitude of 4.4, occurred Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Two aftershocks struck nine minutes apart on Thursday. Wednesday's magnitude 5.9 temblor was the strongest since the January 12 earthquake.

At least 72,000 people have been confirmed dead in the quake, according to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

Canadian troops, meanwhile, were working to open an airport in Jacmel on Thursday, another step that could speed delivery of relief supplies. Jacmel, a seaside town about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, is considered Haiti's cultural capital.

Delayed relief supplies have led to at least five deaths, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.

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Working under adverse conditions with limited supplies, medical teams have been forced to improvise.

Renzo Fricke, field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said staffers had to buy a saw in the market so surgeons could do amputations. A CNN crew loaned a medic a pocketknife for another operation.

Lacking rubbing alcohol, doctors have used vodka to sterilize equipment and instruments. Surgical patients are receiving over-the-counter pain medicine because doctors lack stronger medication. One nurse used a string of Christmas lights as a makeshift extension cord. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen saw a belt used as a tourniquet. When that broke, a garden hose was used.

The USNS Comfort, a U.S. naval hospital off the coast, received about 240 patients over 36 hours, said Capt. James Ware, the commanding officer. "Most of those individuals are critical care types of injuries," he told CNN's "American Morning."

Virtually all are being brought to the ship by air. The ship has 80 doctors, including 24 surgeons, and 140 nurses, he said.

"I think when we're totally mature, which will be in the next two to three days, we believe that we'll be able to push about 150 patients through to the ship and off the ship every day for surgical care, and the government of Haiti is giving us guidance exactly on where those patients will receive their follow-on care," Ware said.

If aid starts moving more quickly, those Haitians who made it through the quake with their health will have increased access to necessities such as food and water.

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"I have not eaten for two days," 32-year-old Anderson Bellegarde said Thursday. "I'm only drinking water."

Bellegarde had waited more than six hours outside a money-wiring branch. Businesses such as Western Union are starting to reopen and are attracting the longest and most visible lines in Haiti's capital, as quake survivors scramble for cash.

Sidewalks were crowded with street vendors and kiosks, and many small food stores were open. Dozens of stalls sold fruits and vegetables at a dusty market along a pocked and rut-filled dirt side street.

More than 300 aid distribution sites are up and running, a senior U.S. administration official said. More than 700,000 meals and 1.4 million bottles of water have been delivered, along with 22,000 pounds of medical supplies, said Lt. Gen. Douglas Fraser of the U.S. Southern Command.

Rescuers continue efforts to find survivors who have defied the odds.

A group of rescuers told CNN on Friday that each rescue gives them hope to keep working.

"Every time we find a live victim, that's the energy that keeps us going to the next day," said Capt. Louis Fernandez of Miami-Dade Urban Search and Rescue.

"These are some of the harshest conditions I've ever seen," he said, adding, "Nothing has ever prepared us for what we've seen here this week."

In the first days after the quake, many people came up to the teams to tell them where there were large numbers of survivors who needed rescuing, Fernandez said.

"We're not getting that anymore. But we're still searching, we're still out there. ... And we'll continue doing that until the Haitian government and the local governments here decide that we're going to be going into a transition."

His colleague Danny Whu said, "The window is rapidly closing. These people, the ones who are entrapped without the ability of receiving food or water, they have to withstand heat indexes at or near triple digits. ... The body may survive a lot of days without food, but definitely they need water."

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International aid contributions since the quake have totaled hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. spending for relief in Haiti has hit $170 million, the federal government announced Thursday.

About 13,100 U.S. troops are in and around Haiti -- nearly 2,700 on the ground and 10,400 more offshore. Many Marines spend time in Haiti during the day but sleep on ships at night. More U.S. troops are to arrive by this weekend, bringing the total to about 4,600 troops on the ground.