Day 6 – Relief Progress in Stats & Key Agency Progess Reports

Revised, Jan 18, 2:30 am..

Jan 17 - Day 6 – Relief Progress in Stats & Key Agency Progess Reports

The big picture in statistics, as of late Sunday night:

- Dead: 45,000 (UN stats) to 140,000 (Haitian officials) Haitians presumed killed (or missing) in quake in Port-au-Prince and several smaller cities

- Bodies recovered: 20,000 in Port-au-Prince (not including many bodies found by residents and burned, buried prior to delivery to morgue, authorities). (Source, W Post, 1/17)

- Estimated left homeless in Port-au-Prince: 300,000 to One million (source: IOM, Haitian officials)
- 10 percent of the buildings in the capital have been destroyed (source: IOM)

Jacmel:
- Estimated dead, wounded, homeless in Jacmel:
unknown number of dead but presumed large. Reports of many wounded and homeless, with city damaage reportedly extensive.

In Port-au-Prince, as of Sunday night:

- 27 rescue teams on the ground *

- 1,500 people searching for survivors.*

- 5 people pulled alive from trapped wreckage on Sat/Sun weekend, including 2 month baby, 7 year old girl and Danish civilian member of UN peacekeeping mission. Nearly 60 people pulled out of rubble by 27 search-and-rescue teams (source: IOM)

- 1,500 rescue workers and 115 dogs involved in rescue operations (source: IOM)

- As of Sun eve, over half of the worst-hit areas of Port-au-Prince had been covered by search and rescue teams. (source: IOM)

- 100 slots for incoming aircraft at Port-au-Prince airport, up from 30-35 in past days.*

- WFP gave out food in three convoys, with goal of distribution enough food to feed 65,000 people for five days. Food: fortified biscuit.*

* source: NY Times

- TOTAL 60,000 people in the capital offered food assistance by UN to date (source: Xinhuanet news)


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Communications:

 UN personnel in Haiti and field support departments are utilizing the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, with nearly 5,000 fans and almost 400 followers having been amassed so far, respectively.

Distribution of aid - Progress Reports:

Despite reports that Haitian authorities are planning a mass evacuation of residents of Port-au-Prince using the IOM as a lead agency to implement this plan, the IOM issued the following progress report today detailing its progress in delivering aid to residents of the capital and extend aid to those in Jacmel.

The agency report reflects steady, but very difficult progress in delivering essential food and non-food items (NFI)s to residents of Port-au-Prince, and a critical delivery of initial aid to hard-hit Jacmel.

The IOM team in Haiti includes: IOM staff and operations on the ground include seven sub-offices throughout the country, supported by a team of emergency experts.

Plan for now: “IOM and its partners, which include Haiti's Civil Protection Department and the Ministry of Social Affairs, IFRC, Concern Worldwide, CRS, Save the Children, OXFAM, ACTED, CARE, UN-HABITAT, will focus on providing immediate support to an estimated one million families left homeless or temporarily displaced from their homes through the repair and cleaning of temporary shelters and damaged private houses, and the provision of NFIs.

Where People Should Go:

Families that can return to their original houses will be encouraged and supported to do so;
while those whose homes have been destroyed but who have family or friends that can offer them shelter, will be encouraged and supported to stay with those families.
And those who cannot return to their homes and cannot stay with host families will be supported in the temporary shelters (camps, collective centres and spontaneous settlements).”

IOM Summary Progress On Day 5, 6 - SAT & SUN (from their briefings):

Two cargo planes carrying emergency relief supplies from the USAID/OFDA Miami warehouse landed overnight in Port-au-Prince with 2,800 hygiene kits, 6,000 ten-litre water containers, 480 kitchen sets, and two mobile water treatment units. Another shipment from USAID/OFDA containing tents and cots is expected to arrive over the weekend.

Arrangements have been made with the Canadian forces stationed at the airport to receive and offload the aircraft. IOM has also secured trucks and is looking at increasing its warehousing space.

"Relief items are expected to be dispersed rather quickly as IOM, WFP and UNICEF aim to cover some 60,000 individuals per day," says IOM's Chief of Mission in Haiti Vincent Houver.

Yesterday, IOM and WFP distributed food and non-food items including tarpaulins, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, bladders, and some shelter material to some 8,000 people in three locations in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Due to on-going operations in Haiti prior to Tuesday's devastating earthquake, IOM has a stockpile of non-food items to assist 10,000 families

Jacmel:
In the coastal city of Jacmel in South-western Haiti, where scores of houses and building were reduced to rubble, IOM has distributed 18,000 aquatabs, 600 jerry cans, 300 hygiene and kitchen kits, 600 mosquito nets, as well as plastic sheeting and tarpaulins.

Progress Reported On Day 4- FRI:
The distribution of non-food items that include tarpaulins, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, bladders, and some shelter material by IOM, will be carried out in three locations around the capital, Port-au-Prince to assist 8,000 people.

Progress Reported On Day 3 – Thurs.:
IOM and WFP carried out a distribution that included tarpaulins, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, bladders, and some shelter material by IOM to about 4,000 survivors who had gathered in the Prime Minister's compound, in Place Boyer and at the Villa Creole, where a mobile hospital has been established. However, the distribution at Place Boyer had to be stopped due to overcrowding and security concerns.

An IOM overflight of the city took place to help the government identify preferred temporary settlement sites. A joint IOM-WFP assessment was planned for later Thursday by car.

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World Vision (Updated reported by AlertNet Jan 17 evening):

World Vision, which has worked in Haiti more than 30 years, today reached an additional 1,000 families with relief items already stored in the country, but many urgent items such as clean water, medical supplies and emergency shelter resources were running low.

The first of a series of flights bringing emergency supplies for World Vision relief efforts in Haiti touched down in Port-au-Prince on Friday evening.

A Hercules C130 brought items such as hygiene kits, blankets, water containers, and shelter materials from World Vision's warehouse in Denver. The aid group is planning more flights this weekend from Panama City, Toronto, and an additional flight from Denver, bringing more supplies, including medicines, tents, and shovels to remove debris.

World Vision teams have distributed first-aid supplies to more than ten hospitals in the Port-au-Prince area.

World Vision's Dominican Republic staff in the border town of Jimani are helping provide food, water, and medical care to hundreds of unaccompanied children who fled Port-au-Prince for the border, either alone or who became separated from parents along the way.

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Save the Children
Excerpted from Save The Children website update, Jan 17:

Save the Children's representative arrived on Thursday to Haiti;

On Friday she began assessing the health situation for children and their families.

Team began survey of situatoin with visit to the General Hospital, a heavily damaged facility in the center of town, overrun with patients.

"When we left the hospital we saw two makeshift camps where people had gathered. In one there with 5,000 people and only four latrines (all full, no longer in use).
Sunday, a 20-foot container sent from Save the Children's warehouse in the Dominican Republic was delivered to Hope Hospital in Port-au-Prince, allowing the organization to provide more than 2,000 people not only with food and water as well as medical and hygiene supplies."

Sunday delivery
"The food will serve 2,000 people.Food included items such as tinned fish,crackers,rice,beans, powdered milk, tomato sauce, bottled water, and cooking oil."

UNICEF:

Unicef is reeling from the destruction of its offices in Haiti in the quake and the loss of key personnel.

The agency issued this update on Sunday regarding delivery of aid to date by the agency in Haiti:

Four days on, UNICEF and its partners are intensifying emergency supply operations to protect the health of children at risk.

Besides supplies that were already in the country, aid is coming from UNICEF's pre-positioned regional stocks in Panama, with additional shipments dispatched from the agency's central warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Focus on water and sanitation
The effort is critical in Haiti, where almost half the population is under 18 years of age. Because children are particularly susceptible to diarrheal diseases, they urgently need access to safe water and proper sanitation in the immediate aftermath of disasters such as this.

"Our major focus, in terms of supply, is water and sanitation," said UNICEF Senior Emergency Health Advisor Dr. Robin Nandy.

Due to the lack of sanitation in quake-stricken communities, added Nandy, "there's a huge risk of communicable diseases such as diarrhea and measles. And this could cause a large amount of illness, as well as deaths, among women and children in particular."

Supplies and experts arrive
As part of the effort to help avert a second wave of deaths in the earthquake zone, a DHL cargo plane carrying UNICEF water and sanitation supplies landed early this morning in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. It was the second such shipment to arrive there in 24 hours.

Water tanks and water-purification tablets were offloaded from the plane for distribution in concert with UNICEF's partners on the ground. The air shipment also contained oral rehydration salts, which can save children's lives by combating the effects of diarrheal dehydration. Two water-and-sanitation experts were on the flight as well.Meanwhile, 5,000 liters of drinking water have reached residents of the coastal city of Jacmel, along with 2,500 kitchen kits for displaced families. The supplies were dispensed in coordination with the World Food Programme.

And beginning tomorrow, UNICEF and its partners will distribute 26 water bladders in badly affected areas. Haiti's main water companies are providing tanker trucks to fill the bladders, which can hold between 5,000 and 10,000 liters each.

More aid en route
Earthquake victims rest in a makeshift shelter set up in the parking lot of the general hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Two more planes loaded with UNICEF aid for Haiti are expected to land this weekend in Santo Domingo, the capital of the neighboring Dominican Republic. The planes will carry essential medicines and shelter materials, among other needed items.

Warehouse Supervisor Christian Dehoux is being deployed on one of those flights, a British Airways plane bringing 40 metric tons of emergency relief from UNICEF's Supply Division in Copenhagen. "We'll have some emergency kits, first-aid kits, a lot of tarpaulins for building shelters," he said as cargo was assembled for the flight.

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More reports about other key agencies will follow in the days ahead. -AC