Effective Aid Pleas

“Desperate Haitians scrambled Sunday to find food and water and guarded their meager possessions against the advance of looters as the U.S. and other nations struggled to jump-start a sluggish relief effort. Even as Navy and Coast Guard ships arrived offshore, a round-the-clock airlift intensified and additional dignitaries appeared, the frantic victims of Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake were growing more fearful as they pleaded for help and security in a lawless city. With massive amounts of aid promised but not yet delivered because of the difficulty of operating in the crippled country, amid what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called ‘one of the most serious crises in decades,’ the living banded together outdoors without shelter, sustenance or protection. There was widespread apprehension that, unless the pace of aid distribution quickens, there could be mass violence as hundreds of thousands of people suddenly lacking food, water and electricity begin to compete for scarce resources.”