PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – Shock began giving way to anger in quake-hit Haiti as thousands of traumatized residents left without homes, food or water Thursday roamed the streets, which echoed with gunshots in some areas.

Homeless wait and spend their time outside in the main square in the center of Port-au-Prince. (AFP photo)

Despite a massive aid operation that is swinging into place, basic supplies were dwindling in the capital of Port-au-Prince which has seen bloody riots in past decades of political upheaval.

Haiti is already the poorest nation in the Americas and UN chief Ban Ki-moon said some 3,000 UN officers were patrolling the streets amid rising fears that tensions could spill over into violence.

“If international aid doesn’t come, the situation will deteriorate quickly. We need water and food urgently,” said Lucille, sitting at the door of her home with her family, dazed by the devastation wrought by Tuesday’s 7.0 quake.

“More doctors, fewer journalists,” one man yelled out angrily, shaking his fists at one of the foreign media crews which are also arriving in the city.

The smell of thousands of rotting corpses left lined up by roadsides, or still mangled in the ruins of the city, filled the air. Occasional moans escaped from the rubble of those still trapped.

One group trying to free a man trapped in the rubble of the tax office, looked up wearily at the planes flying overhead.

“I can’t understand what they are doing, where they are going,” said Jean-Baptiste Lafontin Wilfried as US Coast Guard planes sliced through the skies.

“We hear on the radio that rescue teams are coming from the outside, but nothing is coming. We only have our fingers to look for survivors,” said the tax inspector, standing atop of the remains of his office.

In harrowing scenes, CNN showed rescue workers frantically trying to reach an 11-year-old girl trapped under a house along with several of her relatives.

Lacking the right equipment they were sawing through twisted concrete and metal, contemplating that they might have to amputate her leg, as she screamed out for her mother and father.

Shopkeepers, in a nation dependant on food aid, were trying to protect what little wares they had, amid reports that some homes and businesses had been looted overnight.

“We are hearing several gunshots without knowing where they are coming from exactly. Looting has started in the supermarkets, which have partly fallen down,” wrote Valmir Fachini, spokesman for Brazilian Viva Rio charity, in an email.

“The gunshots are constant and we have the impression that it’s families trying to protect themselves from attackers,” he added.

Early Thursday, the busy streets filled with thousands searching for food and water continued to be rattled by gunfire.

With gasoline supplies scarce, a human tide carrying their meagre belongings were trying to leave the city heading for less damaged areas, or just find a place to sleep.

Some carried tiny radios desperate for news.

There was anger, too, against the country’s leaders, who despite making statements to the international media, have failed to address the nation in one of its darkest hours amid fears the death toll could top 100,000.

“Since the earthquake, there has not been a single word to the people by our leaders. Granted, they also have been affected by the disaster, but they could have said something,” said finance ministry official Valentin.

There were signs that foreign relief workers were beginning to fan out over the city, and the international airport had to be shut as the runways became clogged leaving several planes carrying aid circling overhead.

But in some of the devastated areas of the city, no evidence of the gathering huge aid effort could be seen.

Meanwhile, the piles of bodies continued to grow, many of them gathered and dumped at the damaged main Port-au-Prince hospital where grieving relatives were left to search through them for their loved ones.

“I finally found my cousin,” said Jean Lionel Valentin, pointing to a body covered with a white sheet.

“But now, nobody wants to help me carry the body, taxis are trying to charge me a fortune,” he said.

A growing army of bodies have been laid out in the garden of the facility — – some mutilated and half-clothed, caked in dirt and surrounded by flies.

“For now the main concern is to get the bodies off the streets. Then we’ll get to the ones beneath the ruins,” said a local policeman. (Caribnet)

Pat Robertson

Robertson weighed in on Haiti’s history on his Christian Broadcasting Network show “The 700 Club” on Wednesday.

Haitians were originally “under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil,” said the 80-year-old former presidential candidate.

“They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal,” the televangelist said.

“Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs rejected those comments at his daily press briefing, hours after Obama told Haitians that they would not be forsaken or forgotten.

“It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid,” Gibbs said. “But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.”

Robertson contrasted Haiti with its neighbor Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola.

The Dominican Republic “is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have — and we need to pray for them — a great turning to God and out of this tragedy. I’m optimistic something good may come,” he said.

Right now, Robertson said, “the suffering is unimaginable.”

Ruled for centuries by the Spanish and then the French, Haiti gained independence in 1804 through a slave-led revolution, creating the first country governed by African descendents in the Americas.

The fire-and-brimstone Christian conservative preacher is seen by critics to espouse an anti-gay, anti-liberal agenda, but he describes his ministry as pro-life and pro-family.

Founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson in 1988 beating out then vice president George Bush Sr in the Iowa Republican caucuses, but ultimately failed in his presidential bid.

Perhaps most famously, Robertson in 2005 stirred outrage after calling on the US government to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Robertson, who often makes predictions of upcoming disasters and horrific attacks, came under fire in 2006 after suggesting the stroke then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon suffered was divine retribution for ceding land to the Palestinians. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Desperate Haitians turned rubble-strewn streets and parks into makeshift hospitals and refugee camps on Thursday in the absence of any noticeable response from authorities in Haiti after Tuesday’s earthquake.

With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the presidential palace, a string of ministries and the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, Haiti faces a dangerous vacuum in security and government.

The Caribbean nation of 9 million people, the poorest in the western hemisphere, has a turbulent history of conflict, social turmoil, dictatorship, fragile institutions and devastating natural catastrophes.

Many in the capital Port-au-Prince picked away at shattered buildings with bare hands, sticks and hammers hoping to find loved-ones alive. Thousands of homeless people began to set up their own camps anywhere they could, the biggest right opposite the collapsed presidential palace.

“Look at us. Who is helping us? Right now, nobody,” said Jean Malesta, a 19-year-old student who was the only survivor when her apartment building collapsed from the powerful quake that has killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands.

She and a dozen others lay under a tent they had set up in the park opposite President Rene Preval’s palace. His weak and under-resourced government appears totally unequipped to handle the crisis, its officials in disarray and nowhere to be seen.

“So far, they have brought us nothing. We need water, food, shelter, everything, but we are on our own,” Malesta added, to cries of agreement from women sitting and lying around her.

A major international aid effort has not yet kicked in, although plenty of small groups, many from the United States, have scrambled quickly, moving personnel into Haiti by plane and overland from neighboring Dominican Republic.

“The problem is that unlike traditional disaster situations we have few local partners to work with, because most of them have had their buildings destroyed and are looking for their own dead and missing,” said Margaret Aguirre, a senior official with International Medical Corps.

Haitians are doing their best to survive chaotic conditions in the absence of any clear leadership, said Latin America expert Dan Erikson of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

“The sad truth is that no one is in charge of Haiti today. This vacuum, coupled with the robust response from the Obama administration, has inevitably created a situation where the U.S. will be the de facto decision-maker in Haiti.”

Even President Rene Preval lost his home. “My palace collapsed. … I can’t live in the palace, I can’t live in my own house,” he told CNN on Wednesday.

The 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, which might have been able to step into the void, has been left counting its own dead after its headquarters were destroyed in the quake.

The United Nations said 36 of its personnel in Haiti had been killed and many more were still missing.

Peacekeepers occasionally patrolled the city in buses and trucks and have mobilized some heavy earth-moving equipment but the blue-helmet soldiers have largely stayed off the streets.

Underlying the growing sense of chaos and abandonment around the half-destroyed coastal capital Port-au-Prince, some looting began — a phenomenon Haitians have seen many times before in past political crises.

At one crushed supermarket, young men calmly carried off bags of food and electronics without a policemen in sight.

Pickup trucks stacked high with bodies could be seen making their way through traffic-clogged streets on Thursday morning, on their way to drop off the dead at the morgue attached to Hospital General, the city’s main health facility.

But Guy LaRoche, the hospital’s director, said it was already filled to overflowing with more than 1,500 rapidly decomposing bodies. Many had been left lying out in the sun. LaRoche said he had had no contact with any government officials to see what to do with them.

“I’m awaiting the decision of the government. What else can I do?” he said. “The health threat, from disease, could be another catastrophe. We need nurses, medical teams, more of everything.”

Around the city, many Haitians put rags and masks over their faces as the stench from rotting bodies began to rise. Crushed cars and vans stuck out of collapsed buildings, while children’s toys, shoes and papers were scattered on streets.

In poor areas, there was little sign of any coordinated rescue activities.

“I think 50 percent of the city is destroyed,” said Vladimir Rousseau, a 32-year-old diesel engineer, in the hard-hit Carrefour district.

Reuters witnesses saw some city blocks completely leveled, though in other areas the damage was more patchy.

In the upscale, hilltop Petionville sector, a Chilean contingent of UN peacekeepers — many of whom arrived only last week and looked stunned at events — were helping excavate rubble at the landmark Hotel Montana, which collapsed.

They said they had pulled out 14 people alive already, foreign customers and local workers alike, and thought there were dozens more underneath the stones.

“There is no one in our country capable of sorting this out. Everyone is looking after their own families. Only the world can come to our rescue,” said shop owner Edner Baptiste.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pledging US help for Haiti’s crippled government, said: “The authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function.” (Caribnet)

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) — School children studied in gloomy classrooms and shopkeepers strained their eyes to count cash as electricity rationing began in Venezuela on Wednesday, presenting a challenge to President Hugo Chavez’s popularity.

A long drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has caused a sharp fall in water levels at the hydroelectric dams that provide the bulk of Venezuela’s electricity.

But coming hot on the heels of a sharp devaluation of the bolivar currency that hurts savers, the staggered four hour blackouts every 48 hours have angered Venezuelans used to plentiful energy in one of the world’s top oil exporters.

“Long live Chavez,” some yelled in the capital Caracas, with evident irony. “Welcome to Cuba!” others shouted in reference to the communist island known for outages and which is a close ally and inspiration for the socialist Chavez.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. AFP PHOTO

Residents worried about a crime wave on darkened streets of the city, already known as one of the world’s most violent, with dozens of homicides every week.

“Last night they turned out the lights from midnight until 4 a.m., we couldn’t sleep at ease because of fear thieves would come in,” said Marisol Briceno, 41, who lives with her daughter in the sprawling poor neighborhood of Petare.

“They rob and kill when there is light, imagine how it will be now,” she said.

Government critics say poor management of the electricity sector since it was nationalized in 2007 and lack of investment has made the impact of the drought far worse for Venezuela.

“There is one person to blame here, and he is the president of the republic,” said Enrique Mendoza, an opposition leader.

Chavez and his supporters say shortages are because of climate change and bad planning by past governments.

The blackouts are supposed to follow a schedule, hitting each neighborhood every two days until at least May, but on the first day authorities seemed to follow little pattern.

Officials said some schools and small health clinics will be affected, but that large education centers, hospitals, media outlets, trains will not suffer the cuts.

Street lights in some zones may go off but Javier Alvarado, who runs the Caracas Electricity corporation, said not in poor neighborhoods where crime is highest.

The cuts, which trapped some people in elevators, have also forced the baseball league to reschedule games, disrupting an activity only matched as a national pastime by shopping.

That too is hit, with most malls being ordered to open later in the morning. Government workers are among the few to benefit from the rationing, with public offices opening only between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. for the next few months.

The outages are the toughest measure taken by Chavez to avoid what he says could be a total collapse of the electricity network if water levels at the dams fall another 20 meters (65 feet).

Water supplies are also rationed in the country known for its jungles. Chavez asked people to keep showers to 3 minutes.

Next week, meteorological officials will fire chemicals at clouds in an attempt to “seed” rain over the country’s dams, a scheme that Chavez launched in November with Cuban help.

The government says the OPEC nation’s power deficit is about 12 percent, or 1,669 megawatts. Sporadic and widespread blackouts began over a year ago, mostly in regional cities and rural areas where locals frequently block highways in protest.

“President Hugo Chavez’s popularity is likely to be hit severely as a result of the combined impact of power shortages and devaluation-fueled inflation on the population at large,” Patrick Esteruelas of analysts Eurasia Group said in a report. (Caribnet)

Juhel Browne jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com

Prime Minister Patrick Manning says he cannot afford the expense of attending the controversial Beyonce concert being paid for by the majority State-owned Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT).

Manning was speaking at yesterday’s post-Cabinet meeting at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, in response to a question on the concert which is being opposed by the Communications Workers Union (CWU) which represents the majority of the workers at TSTT.

Manning was first asked about a request by the CWU to intervene in the matter.

He was then asked if he planned to take his wife, Local Government Minister Hazel Manning, since she was observed enjoying a rendition of Beyonce’s song ’Halo’ by the Prime Minister’s band Divine Echoes during the New Year’s Dinner he held for the media at the Diplomatic Centre on Wednesday night.

As the press room burst into laughter and Manning smiled, one reporter said, ’We’re not having fun at the Prime Minister’s expense.’

’Well it couldn’t be at the Prime Minister’s expense because he cannot afford that expense which should answer the question on Beyonce and attendance at the concert,’ Manning said.

He said that he read in the media reports that the CWU ’proposes to engage the Prime Minister on the matter but I have not yet been in receipt of any appropriate correspondence’.

Yesterday marked the first news conference Manning held at the Diplomatic Centre for the new year and he took questions on a range of issues including the remarks made by President George Maxwell Richards during the ceremonial opening of the Third Session of the Ninth Parliament on Wednesday.

’The President is above the cut and thrust of politics and nothing that anybody does should seek to bring the President in that arena. The President has spoken, it is his right, he has spoken and spoken in Parliament at that, so be it. Let’s move on,’ Manning said. (Trinidad Express)

Aretha Welch awelch@trinidadexpress.com

SERIOUS SITUATION: Earthquake engineer Dr Walter Salazar, right, speaks during a press conference at the Seismic Research Unit of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine yesterday in the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake in which thousands of Haitians were killed. Looking on is seismologist Dr Joan Latchman. -Photo: MICHEAL BRUCE

UWI seismologist, Dr Joan Latchman said yesterday that Trinidad and Tobago, despite the fact that our fear of major earthquakes may be lulled because we have not had a major shake in decades, is in fact 22 years overdue.

She said a tremor of similar proportions to the one which wrecked Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince just two days ago has been on the cards for over two decades.

And if it does hit, those living in areas like the swampy Beetham Gardens, Laventille hill sides, the reclaimed sea beds in West Trinidad and unplanned squatting communities are those who are most vulnerable to experiencing the worst effects of the brutal shaking that will come along with the earthquake.

This according to a team of seismology experts and earthquake engineers who held a press conference at the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Unit, in St Augustine yesterday.

When asked about this country’s level of risk, given the proximity of Haiti, Latchman said, ’We do sit on the corner of the Caribbean plate, all of the Eastern Caribbean, including Venezuela is on a seismic plate boundary. So yes we will have earthquakes.’

After explaining that seismologists have given the country a century long cycle in relation to the occurrence of large earthquakes, she then said given that the last major shake occurred between Grenada and T&T in 1888, the country was about 22 years overdue.

She said, ’We do expect a large event soon. How soon is what we don’t know.’

However, Latchman said there was no need for mass panic if the country kept in mind that earthquakes are not what kill people, but instead it was the falling debris and sometimes improperly built buildings which did the damage.

She warned that the country should prepare.

’When the big earthquake does occur, we do not want it to devastate the economy and destroy the country.’

Dr Walter Salazar, an earthquake engineer at UWI also said that Trinidad and Tobago should have country specific building codes, that was based on the result of seismic maps done for this region, not based on codes that work for foreign countries.

He said at present T&T uses a United States developed building code.

Salazar warned, ’Using building codes, from abroad is not appropriate.’

He said the region must begin to understand their own level of ’seismic hazard.’

Both agreed this country had no country specific building codes and no agency properly enforces laws on building construction in this country and that needs to be rectified.

While they said engineers would adhere to the standards for large projects, they said these rules are not always held by those constructing residential properties.

Lloyd Lynch, Acting director of UWI’s seismic research centre said, ’We need stronger compliance, stronger agencies to police construction.’ (Trinidad Express)

Juhel Browne jbrowne@trinidadexpress.com

A plan to use one of the nation’s inter-island fast ferries to transport relief supplies to Haiti is now being considered by Cabinet.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning made the disclosure yesterday as he said this country does not have any military naval assets to transport relief supplies in any large quantities to Haiti, which suffered a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, killing thousands, according to the Red Cross.

’What we do have are fast ferries that operate between Trinidad and Tobago that have tremendous capacity, and one of the options available to us is to divert one of those boats temporarily, and very temporarily, to take stuff to Haiti as part of the relief effort,’ Manning said.

He did so during yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, where he said the Government is trying to determine exactly how to best send the US$1 million ($6.3 million) this country has pledged towards relief efforts in the fellow Caribbean Community (Caricom) state.

’All of those things are by no means clear…It may well be that the (US)$1 million that we are contributing at this time should go to the International Red Cross as part of the help, we don’t know, but all of that will work out,’ Manning said.

He said he is yet to make contact with Haiti’s President Rene Preval but announced a Caricom mission that includes Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding and a team from the Regional Security System, based in Barbados, was on its way to Haiti to assess the situation on the ground. When they return from that country, ’we will formulate a position that Caricom will take’, including the deployment of any regional troops.

’If the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is called upon to send troops to Haiti, then I don’t see we have a choice to do just that,’ Manning said.

Manning said the Caricom mission’s report will also determine whether this country would increases its $6.3 million pledge towards the Haiti relief effort as he expressed this nation’s sympathies towards the Haitian people.

Manning said Cabinet hopes to have ’an indication’ today on how best to ensure that the collection of food, clothing and money from the public for those now suffering in Haiti is properly organised. (Trinidad Express)

Aabida Allaham

HELP is on the way for quake-stricken Haiti.

This was the assurance given by several local businesses and non-governmental organisations who have been working around the clock, searching for a way to get food and other basic necessities to the island since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit on Tuesday.

Among them are Scotiabank, First Citizens, One Caribbean Media, Blue Waters, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (Fitun), Royal Bank of Canada (parent company of RBTT Financial Group), Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Trinidad Chapter, Congress of the People and the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (Doma).

Doma president Gregory Aboud said yesterday the group intended to team up with the largest international relief and development organisation in the United States, Food for the Poor, to get supplies to Haiti.

Located in Miami, Food for the Poor is an inter-denominational Christian agency that feeds millions of hungry poor in 17 countries within the Caribbean and Latin America. Their website, www.foodforthepoor.org, stated they also provided emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 per cent of all donations going directly to programmes that help the poor.

’They have been doing this for a long while, and we thought that they were the better choice because we want to ensure that what we send reaches the people,’ Aboud said.

Teaming up with the YMCA, Aboud said they are using YMCA’s facilities on Benbow Road, Port of Spain, as a depository ’to receive the donations’.

With the most urgent needs identified by the Red Cross being intensified search-and-rescue efforts, field hospitals, emergency health services, water purification, emergency shelter, logistics and telecommunications, the Royal Bank of Canada has requested that where appropriate, its donation to the Red Cross be directed to ensuring survivors have access to clean, drinking water.

Blue Waters chairman Dominic Hadeed told the Express during a telephone interview that his company was organising to send several containers of water to Haiti, and that shipment would go out as soon as the ports have been declared passable.

’We are also going to be working with Food for the Poor and will be looking at other ways to get more products into the country,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the One Caribbean Media (OCM) network radio stations are hosting a four-hour-long ’radiothon’ on Saturday, from 8 a.m., called ’Help Haiti Now’ to collect money. OCM is the parent company of the Express newspapers and TV6.

The OCM network stations are heard in Grenada, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, St Kitts, Montserrat and Trinidad and Tobago. All the OCM Network studios in the Caribbean will be connected on Saturday morning for this historic event.

’Big George’ Wayne LeBlanc will be at the Hott 93 studios in Trinidad along with Warren P, also of Hott 93, JGP of GEM Radio and Patrice of GEM Radio.

The Hott 93 announcers are currently mobilising artistes and other popular personalities to come to the studios on Saturday to be part of the effort. (Trinidad Express)