PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A
major earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly thousands of people as
it toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike and left
the Caribbean nation appealing for international help.
A five-story U.N. building was also
brought down by Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude quake, the most powerful to hit
Haiti in more than 200 years according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Reuters television footage from the
capital, Port-au-Prince, showed scenes of chaos on the streets with people
sobbing and appearing dazed amid the rubble.
The quake's epicenter was only 10 miles
(16 km) from Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in the city and
surrounding area. Aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout
the night and into Wednesday.
Reports on casualties and damage were
slow to emerge due to communication problems but Brazilian General Carlos
Barcellos said at least four Brazilian members of the U.N. peacekeeping
mission in Haiti were killed. A large number of Brazilian soldiers were
also missing.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,
Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment
to move debris and a sufficient emergency personnel.
"I am appealing to the world, especially
the United States, to do what they did for us back in 2008 when four hurricanes
hit Haiti," Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to Washington,
said in a CNN interview.
"At that time the U.S. dispatched
... a hospital ship off the coast of Haiti. I hope that will be done again
... and help us in this dire situation that we find ourselves in. I'm asking
the Haitians who are abroad to work together and bring all the effort in
a concerted manner to help those back home."
Sara Fajardo, a spokeswoman for Catholic
Relief Services, told the Los Angeles Times its representative in Haiti
said the death toll could be in the thousands.
The Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
Without Borders) aid organization said it was treating about 600 people
in its hospitals in Haiti. It also was sending reinforcements to the disaster
zone, as was the International Red Cross.
U.S. ORGANIZING RESPONSE
U.S. President Barack Obama said his
"thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti and pledged
immediate aid. He was to make a statement on the quake on Wednesday but
senior administration officials said a time had not been set.
A late-night White House meeting involving
various arms of the government took place to coordinate the U.S. response.
The State Department urged Americans not to travel to Haiti.
In Geneva, U.N. officials said they
expected the world body would issue an international emergency appeal for
funds and other assistance for Haiti in the next few days, once needs on
the ground had been assessed.
The Inter-American Development Bank
said it would provide $200,000 in immediate aid. The World Bank, which
said its local offices were destroyed but most staff were safe, planned
to send a team to help assess damage and plan a recovery.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it was sending
cutters and aircraft close to Haiti to give humanitarian assistance.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office
said in a statement on Wednesday France was sending rescue services to
help operations and find French citizens.
The quake hit at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT),
and witnesses reported people screaming "Jesus, Jesus" running
into the streets as offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed. Experts
said the quake's epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles
(10 km), which was likely to have magnified the destruction.
The presidential palace lay in ruins,
its domes fallen on top of flattened walls. CNN reported on its website
that Haitian Ambassador Joseph said President Rene Preval was safe, but
gave no further details.
Bloodied and dazed survivors gathered
in the open and corpses were pinned by debris.
The United Nations said a large number
of its personnel were unaccounted for after a five-story building at its
headquarters collapsed.
"The whole city is in darkness.
You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go,"
said Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with the Food for the Poor
charity. "There are people running, crying, screaming."
LITTLE HELP FOR VICTIMS
In the hillside neighborhood of Petionville,
Domersant said he saw no police or rescue vehicles.
"People are trying to dig victims
out with flashlights," he said. "I think hundreds of casualties
would be a serious understatement."
Witnesses said they saw homes and shanties
built on hillsides tumble as the earth shook.
"The car was bouncing off the ground,"
Domersant said.
U.N. officials said normal communications
had been cut off and the only way to talk with people on the ground was
via satellite phone. Roads were blocked by rubble.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy
said the main U.N. building in Port-au-Prince had collapsed. "We don't
know how many people were in the building," he told reporters.
Some 9,000 U.N. police and troops are
stationed there to maintain order and many countries were trying to determine
the welfare of their personnel.
France's minister for cooperation, Alain
Joyandet, said on French radio the Hotel Montana had collapsed and that
about 100 of its 300 guests had been evacuated.
Le Roy's deputy Edmond Mulet said 200
to 250 people worked in the collapsed U.N. building during normal hours.