Haiti Tragedy Deepens as Aid Efforts are Thwarted (7,000+ Buried in Mass Graves)

[tekisui]

Source: Times Online

Haiti faced a second round of tragedy today as the earthquake-ravaged country struggled to handle even the first trickle of the vast amount of international aid heading its way.

Relief flights were turned back from Haiti’s tiny airport, the port remained closed and most of the capital’s infrastructure has been destroyed.

With three million people in Port-au-Prince facing a desperate shortage of water, food and medicine — and thousands still trapped beneath rubble — experts spoke of a race against time to prevent another wave of deaths.

The first relief flights arrived today, but the airport soon had to stop them because it was “saturated” and had no aviation fuel for the planes’ return trips. It took six hours to unload a single Chinese plane because of a lack of equipment. A British aid flight was one of eleven turned back.

Supplies were piling up a few hundred miles away in the Dominican Republic, which occupies the other half of the island of Hispaniola.

The port is unuseable because of damaged wharfs and debris in the water. Most roads are impassable. The Government is barely functioning because whole ministries were destroyed. There is no running water or electricity, little heavy lifting equipment and most communications are down.

The UN mission, whose headquarters was destroyed, is barely operational. Some aid agencies are still searching for their own staff in the ruins of their buildings. Aftershocks continue. “It’s chaos,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which oversees the international response to major disasters. “It’s a logistical nightmare.”

René Préval, the Haitian President, said that he had heard estimates of 50,000 dead. He said that 7,000 had already been buried in mass graves. Félix Augustin, the Haitian Consul-General to the UN, said that more than 100,000 may have perished. Whatever the number, it looks certain to rise.

more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6988922.ece

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[hayu_lol]

11. Haiti is just a place without any infrastructure to speak of...

Their single runway is designed(maybe too loose a word)for the older and more decrepit twin engine transports that haul freight and people around the Caribbean. Certainly neither the runway or the parking aprons located around it are capable of supporting the weight of heavily-loaded 4 engine transports.

Relief efforts cannot be effective for probably at least a week. There are few facilities to quickly unload what transports have already landed. Should be a screaming need for forklifts just for starters. Otherwise a human chain type of unloading(timeconsuming) will have to suffice.

Neither the government of Haiti nor the people will be of much use. Roads, such as they were, are probably pretty worthless at this time to transport goods away from the terminal. As I understand it, the port has silted up(over time)and no one has had the money to have the port dredged for heavy, deep water, ships. As a result, relief ships will have to anchor far offshore with whatever cargoes they carry barged to shore in small boats and barges. Like the planes, the boats will need fuel to get the job done.

The death toll(not even mentioning the injured)will probably double or even triple within a couple of weeks. It will take at least that long to get the movement of relief goods to the people flowing.

Dunno what the immunization status of the Haitian population. Typhoid, Tetanus, diphtheria are all killers just waiting to pounce. There are others. Highly stressed people also have other conditions that will affect them medically.

Basically, these folks will not really have help for a while. Nothing can be done to speed up the process of getting people and goods on the ground where they are needed.

Noted one thread today here on pet groups organizing to go over to save the animals. Animals, including some people, will be part of the food groups.

Essentially, not much can be done immediately. Relief efforts are in process and thats about the best we can expect. Air drops could be useful for isolated groups of people. There are crews trained for heavy drop missions on the C-130s.

If the C-130s are staged out of Florida, depending on total weight, should be able to fly to Haiti and return without refueling. Again, the initial planes in should all be carrying forklifts.

[tabatha]

2. They need a fleet of helicopters from the DR.

[tekisui]

3. Guardian: It became increasingly, brutally clear: Port-au-Prince is a tomb

Some were left beside the rubble, others were shrouded under sheets and lined up in rows, others were packed and stacked in pick-up trucks: there was no escaping the dead of Port-au-Prince today.

The general hospital, its services all but collapsed, became host to a growing army of corpses. Carried, dragged and wheeled there, their ranks swelled by the hour, from dozens to hundreds to over a thousand. "I can't say how many more bodies will be brought here," the hospital director, Guy LaRoche, told Reuters.

Burial was a task for another day while there were still living souls to be dug out from the heaps of smashed concrete which filled the horizon.

It was day three in Haiti's capital and if anything the horror seemed to be worsening. At the Ecole Normale Delmas emergency teams extracted the bodies of teenage schoolgirls in orange uniforms. Their faces were smashed.

Laura Bickle, an orphanage worker, said the parks were filled with people with no homes or shelter to go to. "They are pulling people out of the rubble, literally, blood running in the gutter like water."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-port-au-prince-deaths

[PacerLJ35]

4. Any crew planning to fly to MTPP without enough gas to get somewhere else

is an idiot. Really...I mean that...you'd have to be really stupid to fly into that airport without at least enough fuel to make it to another intermediate airfield for fuel. Reasons:

-Jet fuel is readily available within reasonable distance from MTPP...ie, Puerto Rico, DR, Cuba, etc.

-Assuming there is gas available at an airport rocked by a huge earthquake, and situated in a third world country like Haiti, is just plain dumb

I looked around at the other airfields in Haiti, wondering why everyone only wants to go to MTPP, and realized that the next longest runway is around 4,500 feet...not long enough for most aircraft save a few. There was no mention of any PCN limits (ie, pavement weight limits), so even if you could fit an aircraft into the smaller airfields, who knows if they will damage or destroy the runway and ramp.

[tekisui]

5. I know that one plane was forced to circle for quite some time before

having to head to South America. Could that be part of it?

[PacerLJ35]

6. You plan for things like that

and set up a "bingo" fuel...ie, the lowest fuel state you can attain before having to divert (apparently what the aircraft you mention did). Anytime you fly to an area like this where options are limited, you need to leave yourself an out. Not doing so is stupid, dangerous and obviously impacts the overall effort (ie, having an airplane stuck on the ramp taking up space)

[malaise]

7. Why would it go to South America

It could head for Jamaica or Puerto Rico if DR is full.

[tekisui]

8. I'm not sure. That may have been where it originated.

I honestly can't remember the details now.

[PacerLJ35]

10. If it was military and came from a S. American nation, it probably had to

Unless it received diplomatic clearances from the other nations. There are two kinds of dip clearances...overflight and landing clearances. I know, you're probably saying "but it's disaster relief" but in the grinding cogs of many governments, not adhering to dip cleared routes can create a problem.

[tekisui]

13. It is a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare right now.

There is a major bottleneck at the airport for a variety of reasons. Thanks for the info on flight and fuel.

[Strelnikov_]

9. Marine MEU's w/ LCAC's n/t

[malaise]

12. Yep 7,000 people were buried today

with thousands more to be buried. Our government people returned home a few minutes ago and mentioned the burial of 7,000. :cry:

add

[tekisui]

15. It is heart wrentching to see the pictures and hear the stories.

:cry:

[EFerrari]

14. .

[MadHound]

16. The road in Haiti have never been designed for large vehicles,

And now a lot of them can't even accommodate small vehicles. My thought is that we need to airlift in a pack of mules and start sending out mule trains full of supplies, they'll get where they need to go quicker than trucks will.

[Gregorian]

17. Emergency infrastructure. They need all the helicopters they can get.

You know what I would like to see? Shut down every military operation in the world and send the equipment to Haiti to facilitate rescue and repair.

It's a really shit situation. Somewhere there is a crew of people trying to design a way to get things rolling. An emergency runway would be a big start.

[FreeJG]

18. Get the CRUISE SHIPS lined up around the island, and have the people on the island moved to ships!

Get the people off the island...onto cruise ships. what great pr for them. get the people off..treat them with doctors on the cruise ships. Come on! The island is not workable.

DON'T TURN SHIPS AWAY....SUMMON OUR CRUISE SHIPS...RESCHEDULE A WEEK OF CRUISES!!!

[MadHound]

19. Foolish.

The ports are gone in Haiti, you would have to load the people one small boatload at a time, an impossible task. Not to mention that there aren't enough cruise ships, not enough berths to hold the population of Haiti.

[Odin2005]

20. Good god!

:cry:

[Edweird]

21. Air drop?

[Baclava]

22. It's going to get worse before it gets better (relatively)

That poor place will be unimaginable hell for quite some time, even with all the world's efforts.