Absent Aid

A weak internal government and such massive earthquake devastation have left a death toll that could reach 200,000 and little relief aid. “Twisted, draped in dusty rags or piled into mounds, the dead are strewn around the streets of Haiti’s ruined capital. Some have nothing covering them, left simply to rot in the sun. City workers finally began the grisly task of picking them up yesterday, using vast dumper trucks equipped with automated loaders. People are comparing Port-au-Prince to a scene from Armageddon, but that doesn’t really do justice to the sheer, breathtaking scale of the horror on its streets. When you finally grow used to the stench of rotting flesh and open sewage, or dust-covered crowds roaming the pavements scavenging for water or food, another terrible sight will emerge from the tangled rubble. The death toll from the biggest earthquake to hit the region for 200 years may reach 200,000, the interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters. ‘We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies we anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number,’ he said.”