PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – A new earthquake shook the devastated Haitian capital Port-au-Prince early yesterday, rattling already wrecked buildings and triggering panic among survivors of last week’s devastating quake.
The 5.9 aftershock hit at daybreak. Shrieking Haitians ran from buildings and walls, fearing a repeat of the magnitude 7 quake that killed tens of thousands of people eight days ago. Though the strongest shock since Jan. 12, it did not appear to cause any major new destruction or to slow the international relief effort now bolstered by more U.S. troops.
“Things started shaking. We were really afraid. People came out into the street,” said Victor Jean Rossiny, a law student living in the street. “We have nothing here, not even water.”
Desperate and hungry residents of Port-au-Prince have been sleeping outdoors because their homes were destroyed last week or out of fear aftershocks would bring down more buildings.
Violence and looting has subsided as U.S. troops provided security for water and food distribution, and thousands of displaced Haitians heeded the government’s advice to seek shelter outside Port-au-Prince.
Haitian officials estimated the death toll from last week’s quake could be between 100,000 and 200,000, and said 75,000 bodies had already been buried in mass graves.
“Supplies are beginning to get out to the people,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said while visiting India. “ … My hope is that as we get these trucks out on the roads with supplies and people see patrols — that will prevent any significant violence from taking place.”
At the airport in the damaged historic port city of Jacmel, Sri Lankan, U.S. and Canadian troops delivered supplies.
In Jacmel, Hazem El-Zein of the World Food Programme said he expected 30,000 people were without homes in south Haiti.
Traffic congestion in Port-au-Prince was worse than ever yesterday — perhaps a small sign of recovery — as aid trucks and locals drove to gasoline stations to fill their tanks, jamming streets still cluttered with earthquake debris.
Fuel prices have doubled and there were long lines of cars, motorbikes and people with jerrycans outside gas stations.
Cash needs to start circulating again in Haiti’s shattered economy so people can buy food and civil servants can be paid, an International Monetary Fund official said.
Banks would reopen shortly and money transfer agencies were beginning to process remittances from Haitians living abroad, Nicolas Eyzaguirre, director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, said on the fund’s website.
Remittances total about $1.8 billion a year, accounting for at least 20 percent of Haiti’s gross domestic product, economists say.
“Many people tell me they have run out of cash or are about to,” said Simon Schorno, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Port-au-Prince.
The city’s water system was only partially functional but tanker trucks began to deliver water to the larger makeshift camps, where vendors did brisk business selling charcoal to families who were using small tin barbecues to cook.
LOCALIZED VIOLENCE
Landline telephones in Port-au-Prince were still down, but two wireless networks had spotty service, said U.S. Federal Communica-tions Commission officials helping with the relief.
While military escorts are needed to deliver relief, the United Nations said security problems were mainly in areas considered “high risk” before the disaster.
“I have seen no indications that leads me to believe that the security situation is deteriorating,” said General Floriano Peixoto, chief of the Brazilian U.N. peacekeeping contingent.
Brazilian peacekeepers have helped Haitian police recapture some of the 4,000 prison inmates who escaped after the quake.
To speed the arrival of aid and stem looting and violence, the U.N. Security Council has unanimously agreed to temporarily add 2,000 U.N. troops and 1,500 police to the 9,000-member peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
Around 12,000 U.S. military personnel are on the ground in Haiti and on ships offshore including the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, which arrived yesterday to provide essential capacity for complex surgeries.
At least one Latin American leader, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez, a persistent critic of what he calls U.S. “imperialism,” has already accused Washington of “occupying” Haiti under the pretext of an aid operation.