This is so sad. I hope they can sort this out and soon.
Aid Makes it to Haiti, But Not onto Streets
Aid is reaching earthquake-torn Haiti, but getting it to the people who need it remains a challenge.
Large quantities of medications, baby formula and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out, according to CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.
"It's like everywhere we go, just walking through the airport, outside the airport even, people are saying, 'We need supplies,' " Gupta said.
Gupta found pallets of formula, pain medication and antibiotics standing unattended next to the runway.
U.S. military personnel in a warehouse tent at the airport gave Gupta a trash bag full of supplies to take back to a hospital he had visited earlier but couldn't explain why there seemed to be no organized system for distribution.
"There is stuff here waiting to be taken out, that's a true statement," said Air Force Col. Ben McMullen, deputy commander of the Joint Special Operations Air Component. "Is it a lot? I can't speak to it. I will tell you the reason you got it is that everyone on this side, specifically the U.S. government side, is dedicated to getting as much stuff outside as they can. ...
"It's a shame, because you would hope that everything could get out there within seconds. But that kind of infrastructure just isn't in place."
Over at the city's port, authorities pushing to clear bottlenecks hope to restore two-way traffic at the south pier sometime Friday.
The magnitude 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished nation on January 12 damaged its capital's north and south piers. Haitian authorities and the U.S. military had restored one-way traffic to the south pier, which is the smaller of the two, by Thursday.
Port-au-Prince's north pier remains unusable.
The bottlenecks have delayed food and medical aid to the estimated 3 million Haitians who have been affected by the quake.
At least 72,000 people have been confirmed dead in the quake, according to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
Canadian troops, meanwhile, were working to open an airport in Jacmel on Thursday, another step that could speed delivery of relief supplies. Jacmel, a seaside town about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, is considered Haiti's cultural capital.
Delayed relief supplies have led to at least five deaths, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/22/haiti.earthquake/index.html?hpt=T1