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8 days after Haiti quake: More survivors, 5.9 aftershock

21 January 2010 03:39 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ayaz Abdulla â€“ APA. Rescuers were still finding survivors trapped in the ruins of collapsed buildings in earthquake-ravaged Haiti on Wednesday, and relief officials said efforts to get aid into the hands of survivors were improving, APA reports quoting CNN.
A magnitude 5.9 aftershock rattled Port-au-Prince early Wednesday, the strongest since the original 7.0-magnitude quake struck January 12, the United States Geological Survey reported. Meanwhile, complaints about bottlenecks that have hindered the delivery of food, water and medicine to survivors persisted even as U.S. and U.N. officials said the effort has begun to make progress.
"There’s big success in getting things into the port," said Steve Hollingworth, chief operating officer of CARE. "The real challenge now is following through and having a series of successful distributions going on all over the country, and that’s a challenge for a lot of reasons."
Wednesday’s aftershock was centered about 35 miles (60 kilometers) west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, and about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) deep, according to the USGS. Patients at a hospital near Haiti’s airport in the capital Port-au-Prince immediately started praying as the ground shook like a ship rocking back and forth. They asked for forgiveness and protection, a nurse there said.
An aftershock that size can pose significant danger in an area where buildings already are damaged -- and one nonprofit organization, Save the Children, said its staff "heard already-weakened structures collapsing" as a result of the aftershock.
Engineering team heads to check buildings
Haiti’s government put the confirmed death toll at more than 72,000 on Tuesday, with other estimates ranging as high as 200,000. The confirmed toll already puts Haiti’s quake among the 10 deadliest of the last century, according to USGS figures.
iReport: Search list for the missing and found
But survivors were still being discovered in the rubble of homes and other buildings in Port-au-Prince. A 5-year-old boy named Monley was pulled alive from a collapsed home on Wednesday and was taken to a hospital to be treated for severe dehydration. His mother was killed and his father is missing, but doctors attributed Monley’s survival to resilience and the strength of his young body.
Relatives found the boy in a void beneath the ruins of his house as they searched for his father, his uncle said. Four of the uncle’s friends helped pull the boy out as he cried out, over and over again, "I’m thirsty."
Others reported that the few signs of survivors in the wreckage of the Hotel Montana were fading Wednesday. Some faint knocking that had lasted until early Wednesday morning stopped after the latest tremor, rescuers on the scene said.
The hotel, located in the more affluent suburb of Petionville, was popular with tourists and visiting officials.
In all, international rescue teams totaling about 1,700 people have rescued 121 people, the United Nations said. But about 3 million people -- nearly a third of the Haitian population -- were still in need of food, water, shelter and medical assistance Wednesday, the United Nations estimated.
The aid effort has frustrated some, with a few organizations charging that bottlenecks at the airport and mismanagement in other areas have hampered efforts to get help to the 2 million residents in Port-au-Prince who need it.
"It’s very frustrating that it takes so long to get as many supplies, doctors and hospitals that are needed," John Holmes, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, told CNN’s "American Morning."