Riots break out in Haiti; toll could reach 200,000

Port-au-PRINCE - Riots broke out Sunday in different parts of the ruined capital city, with gunfire aimed randomly at people, Haitian police said.

Police stopped travellers from heading into the centre of Port-au-Prince around LaVille, near the presidential palace, because of the shooting.

“They are shooting everybody, journalists, policemen. There are the bad guys,” a police officer told DPA.

When asked if the reporters could go through, he said: “La Ville, no way.”

The reports were among the first confirmed reports of broadening unrest after days of anecdotal evidence of violent incidents. Most of those incidents in the past days involved people being robbed for their food.

Five days after the magnitude 7 earthquake hit the city of 1.9 million, food, water and medical aid is trickling in and Saturday, there were the first semblances of order returning. A few vendors were open for business, even selling flowers.

Earlier Sunday, a top US military officer confirmed that the international community is bracing for a possible death toll between 150,000 and 200,000 from the earthquake that heaved the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince into rubble Tuesday.

Those numbers would triple or even quadruple the numbers estimated since Tuesday’s 7-magnitude quake in the city of 1.9 million people.

Lieutenant General P.K. Keen, who has assumed command of the US military relief efforts there, was asked by ABC television Sunday about the new estimates that were circulating among officials.

“I think the international community is looking at those figures, and I think that’s a start point,” Keen responded. “We are going to have to be prepared for the worst.”