PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Desperately needed aid from around the world slowly made its way Thursday into Haiti, where a leadership vacuum left rescuers scrambling on their own to save the trapped and injured and get relief supplies into the capital.
President Barack Obama announced that "one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history" is moving toward Haiti, with thousands of troops and a broad array of civilian rescue workers flying or sailing in to aid the stricken country — backed by more than $100 million in relief funds.
To the Haitians, Obama promised: "You will not be forsaken."
The nascent flow of rescue workers showed some results: A newly arrived search team pulled a U.N. worker alive from the organization's collapsed headquarters. He stood, held up a fist in celebration, and was helped off to a hospital.
Planes carrying teams from China, France, Spain and the United States landed at Port-au-Prince's airport with searchers and tons of water, food, medicine and other supplies — with more promised from around the globe.
But it took six hours to unload a Chinese plane because the airport lacked the needed equipment — a hint of possible bottlenecks ahead as a global response brings a stream of aid flights to the airport, itself damaged by Tuesday's magnitude-7 earthquake.
Search and rescue squads from Virginia and Iceland arrived Wednesday and some groups — from Cuba's government and Doctors Without Borders — used staff already in the country to treat victims immediately after the quake.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "tens of thousands, we fear, are dead" and said United States and the world must do everything possible to help Haiti surmount its "cycle of hope and despair."
The U.S. dispatched troops and ships along with aid to Haiti, and other nations were joining the effort to help the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, where the international Red Cross estimated 3 million people — a third of the population — may need emergency relief.
Since Tuesday's earthquake, President Rene Preval has maintained his typical low profile, granting only a couple of media interviews and making few public appearances. He said his own residences were damaged in the quake and the Parliament building collapsed.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. had been in touch with Preval, and added: "We're not taking over Haiti. We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them lifesaving support."
There seemed to be little official presence in much of Port-au-Prince: Trucks carrying police and U.N. workers or equipment to clear away debris were often stuck in traffic on roads filled with pickup trucks, cars and pedestrians. At many collapsed buildings, neighbors and volunteers dug through rubble — often with bare hands — to free trapped residents without help from the government.
Yet the often-chaotic city was surprisingly calm, despite the devastation. Journalists heard little or no gunfire and saw no major violence.
Survivors set up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food scavenged from the rubble.
Bodies lay in the street, often covered by a white cloth, in the tropical heat. Some people dragged the dust-covered dead along the roads, trying to reach a hospital where they might leave them.
Others tried to carry dead relatives to nearby hills for impromptu burials, prompting Brazil's military — the biggest continent among U.N. peacekeepers — to warn the practice could lead to an epidemic. It said it is asking authorities to create a new cemetery.
The Brazilian military said it also was worried that bodies could be left too long because many Voodoo followers in Haiti do not allow the dead to be touched before all their rituals are concluded.
"This is much worse than a hurricane," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctor's assistant working at a triage center set up in a hotel parking lot. "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."
The aid group Doctors Without Borders treated wounded at two hospitals that withstood the quake and set up tent clinics elsewhere to replace its damaged facilities. Cuba, which already had more than 300 doctors in Haiti, treated injured in field hospitals.
Obama promised Haitians an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, including the military and civilian emergency teams from across the U.S., adding that America — and the world — "stands with you."
Clinton said the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Carl Vinson "will be on the horizon soon, the Coast Guard has performed magnificently in helping to evacuate the injured, particularly American citizens."
The U.S. Army said a detachment of more than 100 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division was heading out from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, looking for locations to set up tents and other essentials in preparation for the arrival of another 800 personnel on Friday.
That's in addition to some 2,200 Marines to be sent, as the military prepares to help with security, search and rescue missions and the delivery of humanitarian supplies. More than a half-dozen U.S. military ships also are expected to help, with the largest, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, arriving later Thursday.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that 91 injured French nationals were evacuated to the Caribbean island of Martinique in three planes that had delivered aid and medical personnel.
There was no firm estimate on how many people died in the quake. Preval said Wednesday the toll could be in the thousands.
The acrid smell of drywall and ancient dust that filled the air immediately after the quake has faded, giving way to the usual aromas of Port-au-Prince — flowers and mango trees, with a hint of gasoline and urine.
Police officers carried the injured in their pickup trucks. Wisnel Occilus, a 24-year-old student, was wedged between two other survivors in a truck bed headed to a police station. He was in an English class when the quake struck and the building collapsed.
"The professor is dead. Some of the students are dead, too," said Occilus, who suspected he had several broken bones. "Everything hurts."
Other survivors carried injured to hospitals in wheelbarrows and on stretchers fashioned from doors.
Calls to emergency services weren't getting through because systems that connect different phone networks were still not working, said officials from a telecommunications provider in Haiti.
About 3,000 police and international peacekeepers cleared debris, directed traffic and maintained security in the capital. But law enforcement was stretched thin even before the quake and would be ill-equipped to deal with major unrest. The U.N.'s 9,000-member peacekeeping force sent patrols across the capital's streets while securing the airport, port and main buildings.
Looting began immediately after the quake, with people seen carrying food from collapsed buildings, but aid workers said disturbances were rare. Inmates were reported to have escaped from the damaged main prison in Port au Prince, said Elisabeth Byrs, a U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman in Geneva.
Port-au-Prince's ruined buildings fell on both the poor and the prominent: The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France.
Haitian Senate President Kelly Bastien was rescued from the collapsed Parliament building and taken to a hospital in the neighboring Dominican Republic. The president of Haiti's Citibank was also among the survivors being treated there, said Rafael Sanchez Espanol, director of the Homs Hospital in Santiago.
The State Department announced one American had died in Haiti, saying that at least 164 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the quake.
Coast Guard C-130 planes have airlifted 42 American officials and their families and another 72 private citizens to safety, Crowley said.
Another 370 Americans were awaiting flights out, he said. There were about 45,000 Americans living in Haiti at the time of the earthquake.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it set up a Web site to help Haitians find missing loved ones. Robert Zimmerman, deputy head of the group's tracing unit, said people in Haiti and abroad can use the site to register names of missing relatives.
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Associated Press contributors to this story: Jonathan Katz and Jennifer Kay in Port-au-Prince; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations; Frank Jordans and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva; Jenny Barchfield in Paris; Pauline Jelinek in Washington; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo.
Map of where the quake struck.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake has struck off the coast of Haiti earlier today at 21:53 UTC, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, no tsunami warning was issued, contradicting some media reports that said there was one in place. The quake's magnitude was revised down from an initial report of 7.3 on the Richter scale.

"A destructive widespread tsunami threat does not exist based on historical earthquake and tsunami data," the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. "However, there is the possibility of a local tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a 100 km 60 miles from the earthquake epicentre."

The USGS reports that the epicentre was fifteen kilometres (ten miles) southwest of Port-au-Prince and  southeast of Miami, Florida, at a depth of ten kilometres.

According to USGS analyst Dale Grant, this tremor was "the largest quake recorded in this area"; the last strong quake was in 1984, and had a magnitude of 6.7, he noted.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken. The sky is just gray with dust," said Henry Bahn, an official with the US Department of Agriculture who was visiting in Haiti and a witness to the incident. "I just held on and bounced across the wall. I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance," he commented, as quoted by the Associated Press.

A map indicating the intensity of the earthquake in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, made by USGSAccording to data from the USGS, there were thirteen aftershocks after the initial tremors, the strongest of which was 5.9 on the Richter scale; seven others measured in at 5.0 or higher – all the aftershocks were 4.0 or greater.

No deaths have yet been reported, but a hospital in Port-au-Prince was damaged, and a US government official said several houses fell into a ravine. An analyst for USGS in Colorado commented that there could be many deaths from an earthquake of this strength. "I think we are going to see substantial damage and casualties," he said.

The USGS's Mike Blanpied remarked that about three million people were impacted by the earthquake, given its location. "This quake occurred under land as opposed to off-shore, so a lot of people were directly exposed to the shaking coming off that earthquake fault, which was quite shallow," he said.

A lack of communications makes it difficult to ascertain what damage was done. US embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" due to power failures, said State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley. "They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said, as quoted by AP. A reporter for Reuters said he had seen "dozens of dead and injured people" amidst collapsed buildings.

"We are trying to get in touch with our people on the ground but we are experiencing communication problems, which is not unusual in a disaster such as this," said United Nations spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker to Agence France-Presse.


=== Aid appeals and international reaction ===

Appeals for aid flooded in following the disaster. In a phone call to CNN, the Haitian ambassador to the US, Raymond Joseph, said: "I'm calling on all friends of Haiti and people who are listening to me to please come to our aid. Today as Haiti is going through the worst day in its history I am calling for all others who got help from us in the beginning to help in support. The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised that her country would also provide assistance to Haitians. "The United States is offering our full assistance to Haiti and to others in the region. We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance and our prayers are with the people who have suffered, their families and their loved ones."

President Barack Obama also said that the country would be "ready to assist" Haiti.