Obama asks Bush to help with Haiti relief: Official
WASHINGTON — Former US president George W. Bush will join former president Bill Clinton to help lead the US relief effort in response to the earthquake that devastated Haiti, an official close to Bush said Thursday.
Bush, President Barack Obama’s predecessor, “will join president Clinton in helping with disaster relief” after the catastrophe, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The official announcement was expected to come from the White House.
The United States has launched a massive aid operation, including specialists, Coast Guard cutters, helicopters, transport planes and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, along with 2,000 Marines deployed.
The USNS Comfort, a floating military hospital and a team of doctors and medical supplies, was also readying to sail from the US East Coast to Haiti.
The White House declined to comment on the request to Bush and Clinton, but said that Obama would make a new statement on the unfolding US relief effort for Haiti later on Thursday.
Obama is due to speak from the Diplomatic Room of the White House at 10:05 am (1505 GMT).
On Wednesday, Obama ordered a “swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives,” in Haiti following the murderous quake, as a massive US aid mission swung into action, using troops, naval forces, aircraft and rescue teams.
AFP
Bill Clinton calls for aid, helicopters for Haiti
UNITED NATIONS — Former US president Bill Clinton, who is now the special envoy for the United Nations in Haiti, launched a fund for the stricken nation saying even a dollar or two would help.
“We got to save as many lives as possible,” Clinton said. “So the most important thing individuals who care can do is to send cash even if it’s a dollar or two.”
He was speaking at the UN General Assembly as the world body was rocked by the scale of the earthquake amid fears that the death toll could top 100,000.
Clinton said water, food, shelter and medical supplies were all badly needed to help the people, particularly in the capital Port-au-Prince, which took the full force of Tuesday’s 7.0 quake.
He added that people could also donate through the website of his Clinton Foundation at www.clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake.
Clinton told CNN later that as much as a third of the country had been adversely affected by the quake and rescue teams were urgently needed.
“It’s a devastating problem. Last night, the streets of Port-au-Prince were littered with wounded people sleeping and the bodies of those who had perished,” he said.Related article: Bodies line Port-au-Prince streets
“And we’re going to have, I think, another three or four really hard days of just clearing through the rubble to find the living and those who have died.
“One of the things that we’re worried about is that some people will die from exposure, from dehydration, from their injuries who could be saved,” he warned.
“Which is why getting these search and rescue teams in there is so important and why… I think it’s very important to realize that we are going through about a week here — maybe even 10 days to two weeks — where the critical needs are very simple — food, water, shelter, first aid supplies.”
Asked about fears from Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive that the death toll could top 100,000, Clinton said he felt that may be a bit high.
I’m hoping is that when they clear the rubble away, they’ll find that more people have survived these collapsing buildings than we think. We just don’t know.”
He said UN teams were working to get the cell phone communications restored and said with many roads left impassable helicopters would play a vital role in the aid operation.
“If you can provide any of this emergency help — if you can give us helicopters, if you can give us basic medical supplies, we need that. But remember, this is going to be a long-term process,” the former US president said.
C-130 transport planes could help fly in heavy digging and lifting equipment, especially from the Dominican Republic, Clinton said, adding that there was already some in Haiti, but he was not sure it was in the capital.
AFP
Race to find survivors in ruined Haiti
PORT AU PRINCE — Rescuers raced against the clock Thursday to find earthquake survivors among thousands of corpses in Haiti as planeloads of international aid began arriving in the ruined nation.
Amid mounting desperation over shortages of medicines and food, and with officials warning the overall death toll may top 100,000, many people who escaped with their lives spent a second night on the streets.
Schools, hospitals, hotels, ministries and the presidential palace lay in ruins and people caked in blood and dust pleaded for help as they lay trapped beneath mountains of concrete in Port-au-Prince.
Reflecting the grim mood in the impoverished city of two million, totally unprepared to cope with a tragedy of this magnitude, a preacher warned in Creole about the end of the world.
Jeanwell Antoine held a trapped baby’s arm and sought to comfort it as he clawed through the rubble and debris left behind by Tuesday’s quake.
“It is not me who is pushing back this earth. It is the hand of God, who loves life and is guiding me so I can save this baby,” he said.
With every hour crucial, international rescue teams began arriving with heavy lifting gear, sniffer dogs and desperately-needed medicines, food and water. Related article: World scrambles rescue teams to quake-hit Haiti.
“The priority is to find survivors,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“We are working against the clock.”
Casualty figures were impossible to calculate, but Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the final death toll from the magnitude 7.0 quake could be “well over 100,000.”
President Rene Preval, whose home and official palace were destroyed, said 50,000 could be dead.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who cancelled an Asia trip and returned to Washington, said the death toll would reach “tens of thousands” and warned of an unimaginable disaster in a country which is already the poorest in the Western hemisphere. Related article: Quake shatters Haiti’s fragile recovery.
Teams of civilian and military experts arrived the airport which was operating even though the control tower collapsed.
Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain all offered teams. Australia, Britain and Japan were among the countries who made multi-million dollar aid pleges.
Other rescuers headed to the impoverished nation by sea.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier was to arrive Thursday with destroyers and more Coast Guard ships en route and 5,000 troops on stand-by.
“I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives,” US President Barack Obama said.
The Red Cross launched a 10-million-dollar appeal, the World Food Programme offered 15,000 tonnes of food and the World Bank said it would provide an extra 100 million dollars in aid.
In Tokyo, Haiti’s charge d’affaires Jean-Claude Bordes mourned for a city he learned had been “totally destroyed”.
“The conversations I had (by phone) were not too long. I just heard screams. Our country is destroyed, we have nothing left. It’s God will, we have to accept it,” he told reporters.
With thousands of people missing, dazed survivors in torn clothes wandered through the rubble as aftershocks rocked Port-au-Prince.
Injured survivors were carried on makeshift stretchers past piles of smashed concrete, from which crushed bodies protruded.
The earthquake was the latest tragedy to hammer Haiti, which has been scarred by years of unrest, crime, political tumult and natural disaster.
Former US president Bill Clinton, a United Nations special envoy to Haiti, warned of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.
A UN spokeswoman said that more than 100 of its expatriate staff members are still missing, including the head of the mission, Hedi Annabi.
Brazil said 11 of its peacekeepers were killed. Jordan reported that three of its peacekeepers died, while eight Chinese soldiers were buried in rubble and 10 were missing, state media said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) set up tent clinics in the city to treat the thousands of wounded.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people who are sleeping in the streets because they are homeless,” MSF coordinator Hans van Dillen said.
“We see open fractures, head injuries. The problem is that we can not forward people to proper surgery at this stage.”
The quake turned thousands of buildings into rubble. Among them was the UN mission headquarters and a major hotel where 200 tourists were missing.
AFP
La journaliste Liliane Pierre-Paul témoigne d’une journée macabre à Port-au-Prince
Les communications téléphoniques sont quasi-impossibles tant en Haïti que de l’étranger. Nous avons tout de même pu nous enquérir de la situation auprès de la journaliste Liliane Pierre-Paul via clavardage. Elle nous a relaté une journée chaotique.
Liliane nous a fait part du traumatisme physique, psychologique et émotionnel que vit la population en ce moment. Des centaines de personnes sont mortes sous les décombres, des dizaines de personnalités sont soient portées disparues ou déclarées mortes et le chaos actuel ne laisse rien augurer de bon pour les survivants.
Liliane tenait à souligner que ce nombre impensable de personnalités disparues laissait le pays dans un état de quasi-vacance décisionnelle :
Hédi Anabi / Patron de la MINUSTAH
Luis Dacosta / No 2 de la MINUSTAH
Monseigneur Serge Miot / Archevêque de Port-au-Prince (Décédé au cours de l’effondrement de la Cathédrale de Port-au-Prince)
Le Juge Roc Cadet / Doyen du tribunal civil (Décédé au cours de l’effondrement du Palais de Justice)
2 sénateurs décédés au cours de l’effondrement du Parlement
2 ministres du gouvernement en deuil : – Ronald Beaudin – Ministre de l’Économie et des Finances qui a perdu son fils lors de la catastrophe. – Patrick Delatour qui a perdu ses parents (Son père et sa mère)
3 directeurs généraux qui sont morts dans leurs ministères respectifs.
Mirna Narcisse Théodore, directrice générale du ministère de la Condition Féminine et des Droits de la Femme.
L’écrivain George et Mireille Anglade
Ainsi que de nombreux professionnels connus.
Plusieurs édifices en ruines promettent de livrer de lourds bilans au cours des prochaines heures, parmi ceux-ci :
Le Palais National
Le Palais de Justice
Le Palais Législatif
Le Palais des Ministères
Les bureaux de la Direction Générale des Impôts
Des hôpitaux
Des écoles
L’hôtel Montana
Le Caribbean SuperMarket
Des universités
Des magasins
Les bureaux de la MINUSTAH
Les victimes, sans égards de sexe, d’âge ou de condition sociale s’apprêtent donc à passer une nouvelle nuit dans la rue car une psychose de peur règne avec la menace sans cesse présente de répliques sismiques qui pourraient achever les dernières structures encore debout.
Les places publiques sont bondées de monde à la recherche d’aide et d’abris.
À ce chapitre, les blessés ne reçoivent qu’une attention rudimentaire compte-tenu de leur nombre et du fait que les autorités soient débordés lorsque présentes.
Plusieurs victimes sont encore coincées en vie sous les décombres.
Les cadavres jonchent les rues par dizaines et les morgues ne peuvent plus en accepter. Des problèmes de salubrité graves semblent inévitables.
Radio Kiskeya
Earthquake Silences Haitian Olympic Committee
(ATR) No communication has been established with the Haitian Olympic Committee following an earthquake in Haiti that may have killed hundreds of thousands.
Olympic officials throughout the region say they are not able to make contact since the disaster Thursday. Calls by Around the Rings to the HOC headquarters were unsuccessful, as all circuits to Haiti were busy.
The prime minister of Haiti tells CNN
Tuesday’s earthquake off the coast of Haiti measured 7.0 on the Richter Scale. (Getty Images) fatalities could reach into the hundreds of thousands. The International Red Cross says three million people — one-third of the population — are affected by the quake, the strongest in 200 years.
ATR is told that Luis Mejia Oviedo, president of the Dominican Republic NOC is traveling to Haiti now to assess the damage and that the Olympic committee is launching a food and clothing drive to help with relief efforts.
Michael Fennell, president of the Jamaican Olympic Association, tells ATR he tried to reach the Haitians, but had only been able to reach fellow member of the Rotary Club. The capitals of Jamaica and Haiti are less than 300 miles apart. Fennell said the Haitians are Jamaica’s “close neighbors” and “our brothers”.
He also said his Rotarian friends told him the most pressing need was for “necessities, they need food
Haiti sent seven Olympians to Beijing. Judoka Joel Brutus was the flag bearer. (Getty Images) and shelter” not money.
A staff member with the Dominican Republic Olympic Committee tells ATR their office in Santo Domingo is undamaged.
Haiti sent seven athletes to Beijing. Haiti’s first Olympian competed at the 1900 Olympics for France. Its first Olympics as a sovereign country came in 1924. The country’s first medal, a bronze in team shooting, came at the Paris Olympics. The 1928 Games were the best for Haiti, when Silvio Cantor won silver in the long jump. No other Haitians have medalled at an Olympics.
The president of the HOC Is Jean-Edouard Baker.
Aroundtherings.com
Tragedy in Haiti extends to local athletes as well
By MICHELLE KAUFMAN
mkaufman@MiamiHerald.com
Jozy Altidore is a World Cup-bound forward on the U.S. national team. He makes big money playing for Hull City in the English Premier League. But none of that mattered on Wednesday. Altidore, a Haitian-American who grew up in Boca Raton, was thinking only of his missing loved ones, and praying they would be found among the rubble from Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake near Port-au-Prince.
Altidore literally begged his Twitter followers to make donations to the relief efforts, and on Wednesday night appeared on Larry King Live. Two uncles from his mother’s side and four cousins from his father’s side were unaccounted for. His father, Joseph, and mother, Giselle, were born in Haiti and emigrated to New Jersey, where the soccer player was born.
“We haven’t heard from them, and are just crossing our fingers,” Altidore said. “We tried by phone, text, Skype, internet. We haven’t gotten any answer.”
Earlier in the day, he wrote on Twitter: “Haiti is one of the poorest countries on the Planet. If you have any sort of heart put yourself there and imagine how scared and torn you would be? Please do anything you can to help them. I beg of you. In the parents shoes who are worrying about their young ones. Please don’t sit and just watch CNN. Get up and do something, make a donation.”
WBC Welterweight World Champion boxer Andre Berto, a Haitian-American who grew up in Miami and represented Haiti in the 2004 OIympics, also pleaded for help.
“I’m devastated by everything currently happening in Haiti. As everybody knows, I have a lot of family members in Haiti and proudly represented Haiti in the 2004 Olympic Games. Like many other Haitian-Americans, my family and I are working to reach my loved ones. From what we have learned to this point, some of my family members are still missing and we have already been informed that members of my family have passed away in the earthquake.
“We are currently working on starting our own Haitian relief efforts, and I will be releasing additional information on how everyone can help very soon. I am asking everyone for their continued thoughts and prayers for the people in Haiti during this devastating time.”
MIAMI HERALD
Translator