Crying for help

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti-The smell of death clings to the rocks in Haiti. On the streets leading away from the still-chaotic airport in the capital city, Haitians have begun to stack chunks of rubble in small piles on the roadsides, waiting for a clearing away that could take months. In the meantime, aid workers report that the rubble sometimes contains pieces of body parts-victims not fully recovered from the ruins of their homes and other buildings.

No such grisly site was immediately visible on my drive on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince Wednesday afternoon, but the stench of decomposing flesh hung thick in the air, an aroma of death in a city crying for help. Haitian officials say they have recovered 70,000 bodies, and estimate that the death toll from the Jan. 12 quake could reach between 100,000 and 150,000 people.

Back on the hot tarmac at the Port-au-Prince airport, a different aroma lingered: heavy fumes of aviation fuel from U.S. Air Force jets, corporate planes, and commercial aircraft from as far away as Iceland, crowded onto a tiny runway managed by a new kind of "tower"-a handful of U.S. soldiers huddled around a folding table in a grassy area directing flights. Amazingly, those flights moved smoothly, brimming with supplies like water, tarps, and medical supplies.

But for many, the aid isn't coming fast enough. As I stood on the runway waiting for ground transportation with a team of doctors, nurses, and logistics folks from Samaritan's Purse, a Haitian woman quickly approached. "Do you have medical supplies?" she asked. When a team member explains their supplies are headed for a needy hospital on the outskirts of town, the woman asks, "Do you know people are dying right outside?"

Aid groups do know this but find the logistical challenges of delivering aid maddening. Blindly walking into needy crowds is dangerous, but needy crowds often can't make their way to the aid stations being set up around town. A 6.1 aftershock Wednesday morning only worsened transportation woes: Police blocked roads and people moved farther away from buildings to escape injury, clogging roads already nearly impassable.

Still, mission hospitals like the one supplied by Samaritan's Purse at Baptist Haiti Mission in nearby Fermathe are seeing hundreds of patients. At the airport Wednesday afternoon, Paul Osteen-a Texas surgeon and brother of megachurch pastor Joel Osteen-said conditions were improving, though injuries remain serious. For now, Osteen is mostly performing amputations.

As hardworking aid groups assess their next moves, so do hard-pressed Haitians. On a sagging sheet hanging on a cracked wall just outside the airport exit, one group of Haitians tried to make their plight clear: "Help needed here."

Related coverage:

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