UN launches Haiti earthquake relief appeal

The UN has launched an appeal for $562m (£346m), to help victims of Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said the funds were intended to help three million people for six months.

The earthquake has left tens of thousands of people dead, and rescuers are continuing an increasingly desperate search for survivors.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would travel to Haiti on Saturday.

The BBC's Matthew Price, outside the ruins of a nursing college in the capital Port-au-Prince, says he has been told by a female member of staff that there could be 260 dead bodies and up to 25 people still alive under the rubble.

A team of Brazilian rescuers is trying to gain access to the victims but progress is painfully slow, our correspondent adds.

Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters news agency that 50,000 bodies had already been collected.

"We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," he said.

The Pan American Health Organization has estimated that the death toll could be as high as 100,000, while the UN said about 300,000 had been made homeless.

The US has announced it will grant leave to remain to thousands of illegal Haitian migrants living there due to the humanitarian crisis in their country.

The chief of the homeland security department, Janet Napolitano, said they would be allowed to stay and work, initially for 18 months.

Despair and anger

Aid workers have been grappling with logistical problems as they attempt to distribute aid.

The port is too damaged to use and roads are blocked by debris, although the main route from the Dominican Republic is now clear.

At the country's main airport, which is small and has been filled to capacity, US authorities took temporary control to help distribute aid more quickly.

Correspondents say survivors seem increasingly desperate and angry as bottlenecks and infrastructure damage delay relief efforts.

Mr Holmes, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said a massive effort was being mounted and officials were "straining every nerve" to help.

"This is a huge and a horrifying catastrophe, the full consequences of which we do not know," he said.

He said almost half of the appeal money would be for emergency food aid, with amounts of between $20m and $50m for health, water and sanitation, nutrition, emergency shelter, early recovery and agriculture.

Satellite and close-up images of Port-au-Prince devastation

A total of about $360m has been pledged so far for the relief effort, but only part of this sum will be included in the emergency appeal.

Mr Holmes earlier told reporters that 30% of buildings throughout Port-au-Prince had been damaged, with the figure at 50% in some areas.

Many there have spent a third day without food and shelter in the ruined capital, though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Haiti on Sunday, said distribution of food and medicine was under way.

'Unwavering support'

The BBC's Nick Davis in Port-au-Prince says the only convoys he has seen are people leaving the city, in search of food, water and medicine.

Correspondents say there is little official presence in Port-au-Prince despite incidents of looting.

Mrs Clinton said she would visit Haiti on Saturday to assess the damage, meet government officials and convey to the Haitian people "our long term, unwavering support, solidarity and sympathies".

Earlier US President Barack Obama described the scale of the devastation as extraordinary and the losses suffered as "heartbreaking".

In a statement at the White House, he said the US would "do what it takes to save lives and help people get back on their feet".

To magnify this image of Port-au-Prince mouse over the left-hand panel The US has already sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to Haiti and the USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is on its way. A hospital ship and more helicopters are due to be sent in the coming days, carrying more troops and marines, with the total number of US troops to rise to between 9,000 and 10,000. Aid groups say it is a race against time to find trapped survivors. Plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are arriving from the UK, China, the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations. Gen Douglas Fraser, the commander of US Southcom, says around 90 aid flights a day are landing.

Haiti earthquake feared to have killed many

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of Haiti is feared to have caused major loss of life in and around the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Haiti's worst quake in two centuries seriously damaged the HQ of the UN mission in Haiti and a "large number" of its personnel are reported missing.

Haiti's envoy to the US talked of a "catastrophe of major proportions".

Buildings, including a hospital, are said to have collapsed, and rescue efforts are under way.

The quake, which struck about 15km (10 miles) south-west of the capital, was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude.

The tremor hit at 1653 (2153 GMT), the US Geological Survey said. Phone lines to the country failed shortly afterwards.

A Reuters reporter in Port-au-Prince, Joseph Guyler Delva, said he had seen "dozens of dead and injured people" in the rubble of fallen buildings.

Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told colleagues in the US "there must be thousands of people dead".

The aid worker had managed to phone his colleagues before communication links went down.

The BBC's Nick Davies in neighbouring Jamaica says the ground apparently shook for more than a minute in Haiti.

Local people, he said, were using anything they could get their hands on - including farm equipment - to help release those trapped in the quake.

Our correspondent adds that, as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti is likely to need international aid in order to cope with the quake's impact.

'Three million affected'

In a statement issued in New York, the UN said that its local HQ in Haiti had "sustained serious damage along with other UN installations".

A large number of personnel remain unaccounted for," it added.

The UN stabilisation mission plays a vital role in ensuring security in Haiti.

Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the US, told CNN: "I think it is really a catastrophe of major proportions."

He said he had just spoken to a government colleague in Port-au-Prince:

"He had to stop his car just about half an hour ago, and take to the streets, start walking, but he said houses were crumbling on the right side of the street and the left side of the street.

"He does not know whether he would reach his home, not knowing what he would find, because he had a bridge to cross to get there."

Mike Blanpied of the US Geological Survey said that, based on the location and size of the quake, about three million people will have been severely shaken by its impact.

"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 told the BBC.

He added that as the quake had occurred near a highly populated urban area, the aftershocks could cause additional damage to already shaken buildings.

US President Barack Obama said in a statement that his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti and America stood ready to assist them.

'Rubble and wire'

An Associated Press cameraman saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hilly suburb of the capital, and Henry Bahn, a visiting official from the US Department of Agriculture, said he had seen houses which had tumbled into a ravine.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Mr Bahn, who described the sky as "just grey with dust".

He said he had been walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake.

"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said.

"I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."

He said rocks were strewn all over the place, and the ravine where several homes had fallen in was "just full of collapsed walls and rubble and barbed wire".

BBC News website readers in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, said they had also felt the quake.

"My family is on the 8th floor of a tower in downtown Santo Domingo," wrote Max Levine.

"We felt a swaying of the building for 5-10 seconds. All the lamps were swinging. There was a 20-second pause and then another similar sway. We rushed out of the building with many others to the street."

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, a tsunami watch was put out for Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas, but this was later lifted.