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An injured child receives medical treatment in Port-au-Prince - Source: Reuters -
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Tens of thousands of people are feared dead in a major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti.
A five-story United Nations headquarters building was also demolished by Wednesday's magnitude 7.0 quake, which the US Geological Survey says was the most powerful in Haiti in more than 200 years.
Many casualties are feared in the UN building.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive has told Reuters that thousands
of buildings collapsed in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
He says he believes the casualties will be "in the range of thousands of dead" but adds that he could give no clear official estimate.
A short time later, however, Bellerive told CNN he believes well over 100,000 people could have been killed.
President Rene Preval has called the damage "unimaginable" and describes stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped in the collapsed Parliament building, where the senate president was among those pinned by debris.
"There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them," he has told the Miami Herald.
"All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe."
Sobbing and dazed people are wandering the streets of Port-au-Prince, as voices cry out from the rubble.
"Please take me out, I am dying. I have two children with me," a woman told a Reuters journalist from under a collapsed kindergarten in the Canape-Vert area of the capital.
The presidential palace lay in ruins, its domes fallen on top of flattened walls.
Preval and his wife were not inside when the quake hit.
Ground still trembling
The quake's epicentre was only 16 km from Port-au-Prince.
About 4 million people live in the city and surrounding area.
Many people slept outside on the ground, away from weakened
walls, as aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city
throughout the night and into Thursday.
The devastation has crippled the government and the UN security and
assistance mission keeps order, and there are no signs of any
organized rescue efforts.
Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste says his
organization is overwhelmed.
"There are too many people who need help ... We lack equipment, we lack body bags."
Reports on casualties and damage are slow to emerge due to communication outages.
Prevel also confirmed that the head of the UN mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, was killed in the earthquake.
"Ambassador Annabi died. We send our sympathy and condolences to
all the international community," Preval has told journalists in
Port-au-Prince.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says 100 to 150 people were in the
building when the quake struck.
Brazil's army says at least 11 Brazilian members of the UN
peacekeeping mission were killed and many soldiers are missing.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment to move debris and sufficient emergency personnel.
Flimsy homes
"I am appealing to the world, especially the United States, to
do what they did for us back in 2008 when four hurricanes hit
Haiti," Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to Washington,
said in a CNN interview.
"At that time the US dispatched ... a hospital ship off the coast
of Haiti. I hope that will be done again ... and help us in this
dire situation that we find ourselves in."
US President Barack Obama says his "thoughts and prayers" are with
the people of Haiti and he has pledged "unwavering support."
Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says its three hospitals
in Haiti are unusable and it is treating the injured at temporary
shelters.
"The reality of what we are seeing is severe traumas, head wounds,
crushed limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with with the
level of medical care we currently have available with no
infrastructure really to support it," says Paul McPhun, operations
manager for the group's Canadian section.
In Geneva, UN officials say they expect the world body to issue
an international emergency appeal for funds and other assistance,
once needs on the ground have been assessed.
Germany, the US, Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, Sweden,
Luxembourg and Netherlands are sending aid and reconnaissance and
rescue teams, some with search dogs and heavy equipment.
Other government and aid groups have offered tents, water
purification units, doctors and telecommunications
teams.
Click here for
Haiti donation information.
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