Posts Tagged ‘Three top UN officials dead’

MASSIVE TRAGEDY IN HAITI

January 17th, 2010 by Ravi Matah | Posted in News   Comments Off on MASSIVE TRAGEDY IN HAITI

As many as 200,000 people have died in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, will need to be rebuilt.

Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told media that “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.”  Some 40,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, said Secretary of State for Public Safety Aramick Louis.

Haiti Presidential Palace

Haiti Presidential Palace

If the casualty figures turn out to be accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

Three days after it struck, gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors living in makeshift camps on sidewalks and streets strewn with rubble and decomposing bodies, as quake aftershocks rippled through the hilly neighborhoods.

Looters have broken into UN food ware-houses in Haiti’s capital. (more…)