FE Today Logo

Rescuers pull survivor from Haiti quake rubble

January 28, 2010 00:00:00


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 27 (AFP): Stunned rescuers wrenched a survivor from the rubble after 12 days entombed in Haiti's quake-ravaged capital, where desperate crowds clamoured Wednesday for more and quicker relief.
Dehydrated, covered in dust and with a broken leg, the 31-year-old emerged alive from the ruins of a road in Port-au-Prince called the Rue de Miracles.
He was not buried by the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck on January 12 but two days later, according to the US military who rescued him, probably by one of the huge aftershocks common after such a disaster.
He had survived on small amounts of water and was said to be amazingly well considering his ordeal -- the longest of any Haiti quake survivor so far.
Two further tremors Tuesday scared weary, destitute Haitians out of their makeshift camps, and the US Geological Survey warned of more to come for the next month.
"We just can't get used to these quakes. Each aftershock is terrifying and everyone is afraid," trader Edison Constant said.
The January 12 quake killed at least 150,000 people in the Caribbean nation -- one of the world's poorest even before disaster struck -- and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
In the Cite Soleil slum, several thousand desperate people converged on a walled police compound for sacks of relief supplies, surging against the steel gates as officials struggled to let them in one by one.
Across the capital, ad hoc street committees have hung imploring banners in English and French -- "SOS", "We need help here" and "We need food and water" -- in desperate attempts to attract aid agencies' attention.

Share if you like