Man rescued from Haiti rubble after 11 days
Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- French rescue workers pulled a 24-year-old man alive from the rubble of a hotel in Haiti on Saturday, 11 days after an earthquake devastated much of the country.
Wismond Jean-Pierre, who had no visible injuries but was severely dehydrated, was immediately loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital for treatment.
One member of the French team called the three-hour effort "a miracle" as he was briefly overcome with emotion. Other members of the team -- assisted by American and Greek workers -- were seen weeping with joy after the rescue.
"This is God," the chief of the French rescue team said as he pointed to the sky.
The man's brothers said they reported hearing tapping from within the ruins of the Hotel Napoli Inn for several days but struggled to get authorities to the scene. A Greek journalist said he alerted Greek rescue workers after hearing the tapping for himself.
A French rescuer said the man was found in a pocket in the rubble and was able to move all of his extremities.
The rescuer said the man did not say much when he was pulled out but did indicate that there were three or four people around him when the building collapsed. The rescuer said the man had not heard any sounds around him for a couple of days, but workers were going into the rubble with radar equipment to check for any other survivors.
Earlier Saturday, the government announced that it has ended the search-and-rescue phase of its response to the disaster and that more than 111,000 people had died in the quake and its aftermath.
The government's figure, released by the United Nations late Friday, is the first precise death toll for the magnitude-7.0 quake that struck January 12. It said 111,481 people were confirmed dead.
It is the worst death toll from an earthquake since the 2004 Asian tsunami and the second-highest death toll from an earthquake in more than three decades, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
About 609,000 people have also been left homeless in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
President Rene Preval joined hundreds of other mourners Saturday at the funeral of Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince.
"He was a good man," Preval said, declining to address questions about his own handling of Haiti's crisis.
A two-hour "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon Friday night featured musical performances by top acts and a phone bank staffed by dozens of celebrities.
Proceeds from the telethon will benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme, the Yele Haiti Foundation and the Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation.
Organizers did not say how much money the telethon had raised.
Before the search-and-rescue effort ended Friday afternoon, the U.N. office said said, rescuers had managed to pull 132 people alive from the rubble.
That number did not include two rescues Friday. An Israeli team pulled a 22-year-old man alive from the ruins of a three-story building, and doctors in Port-au-Prince were treating a 69-year-old woman they said was rescued Friday morning.
Doctors said that the woman was "critically ill" after being trapped for so long and that she may not survive.
About 120 to 140 flights a day are now regularly arriving at the single-runway Port-au-Prince airport, compared with 25 the day after the quake struck January 12, the UN office said. To relieve congestion at the airport, humanitarian cargo is being moved to a forward dispatch area at one end of the runway.
The Las Americas airport in Santo Domingo, in the neighboring Dominican Republic, is starting to report congestion as it becomes increasingly useful as an alternative airport, the UN office said. It will now be open overnight to accommodate the extra traffic.
The US military has obtained landing rights at the Dominican Republic's air base at San Isidro, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) east of Port-au-Prince.
Port-au-Prince's main port is now working at 30% capacity, which should increase in the coming days, the UN agency said. The port is handling only humanitarian cargo and is still closed to commercial traffic.
Haiti is negotiating with the Dominican Republic to use the port at Barahona, about midway between the two countries' capitals, for more humanitarian deliveries.
Those managing the land transport of supplies will need fuel, and the UN agency said there is enough in Haiti to last an additional 18 to 19 days.
But it expects no shortage of fuel because supplies of fuel will be able to enter the port during that time.
One concern with cross-border traffic is the unauthorized departure of Haitian children.
Charities and aid groups have said in recent days that they are concerned about the danger of child trafficking after the earthquake. Groups including Save the Children and World Vision have called for a halt to adoptions, saying many children may appear to be orphaned but in fact have simply been separated from their families.
"If children must be evacuated from Haiti because their protection needs cannot be met in country, the evacuation must be carefully documented, the children must be registered with the proper authorities, and all efforts must be made to reunify them with family before any adoption proceedings are considered," the US-based Women's Refugee Commission said.
The number of unaccompanied children needing support is greater than the capacity to respond, the UN office said. Authorities are working with unaccompanied children who are being released from hospitals, it said.
There are now 47 hospitals, 11 mobile clinics and two floating hospitals -- from the United States and Mexico -- in and around Port-au-Prince.
One of those floating hospitals is the USNS Comfort, a US Navy vessel just off the Haitian coast. Capt. James Ware, the commanding officer, oversees a team of 80 doctors, including 24 surgeons and 140 nurses.
Ware said Friday that the hospital had received about 240 patients over 36 hours. In the next few days, he said, he expected the ship to treat about 150 patients a day.