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Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Rescue teams clawed through the rubble of Port-au-Prince for the fifth straight day on Sunday still dragging out earthquake survivors even as bodies piled up and the United Nations said it had never confronted such a huge disaster.

Amid new anger over the relief operations, some Haitians fought for the rations that were getting through while others carried the injured on their backs or on carts to emergency hospitals.

Haitian police opened fire on a group of looters on Sunday, killing at least one of them as hundreds of rioters ransacked a market.

One rioter, a man in his 30s, was killed outright by bullets to the head as the crowd grabbed produce at a local supermarket. As clashes continued, police reinforcements descended on the area armed with pump-action shotguns and assault rifles.

Heavily armed gang members who once ran Cite Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum, like warlords have returned with a vengeance since the earthquake damaged the National Penitentiary, allowing 3,000 inmates to break out.

The pacification of Cite Soleil had been one of President Rene Prevail’s few undisputed achievements since taking office in 2006.

“It’s only natural that they would come back here,” said a Haitian police officer in the teeming warren of shacks, alleys and open sewers that is home to more than 300,000 people. “This has always been their stronghold.”

Though survivors are still being dragged out, the true scale of the disaster is slowly beginning to emerge. UN Secretary general Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called the quake the “most serious humanitarian crisis” to face the world body in decades.

The UN said increasing numbers of Haitians were trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic, on the eastern side of Hispaniola Island, and reported a surge of quake survivors fleeing to northern cities.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 people died just in the town of Leogane, west of the capital and the epicenter of the magnitude 7.0 quake that struck last Tuesday, according to UN officials. The Haitian government has estimated about 50,000 dead so far.

The Medecins Sans Frontiers aid group opened an emergency hospital at Carrefour, a poor district near Leogane. MSF said its doctors had been working around the clock, amputating limbs and performing Caesarian sections on pregnant women.

Most bodies are now being pushed into mass graves outside the capital to prevent the spread of disease. But intensive efforts are being pursued to find survivors.

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said 12 more people were pulled out alive from debris on Saturday, taking the total to more than 70 since teams started working.

Some 43 international teams comprising 1,739 rescue workers and 161 sniffer dogs have already scoured 60 percent of the worst-affected areas hit by the quake.

Byrs said the way buildings had collapsed left sufficient void spaces that allowed for trapped victims to remain alive. “There is still hope. The conditions are very favorable,” she said.

At the same time, she warned of the scope of the work ahead. “We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory,” Byrs said on Saturday. “It is like no other.”



Agence France-Presse