A glance at the main Haiti developments 18 days after Haiti quake

A glance at Haiti developments 18 days after quake

A look at the latest from Haiti on Saturday, 18 days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, and left an estimated 200,000 dead throughout the country:

AMERICANS DETAINED

Ten Americans were detained by Haitian police as they tried to take 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic, allegedly without proper documents. The Baptist church members from Idaho called it a “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission,” meant to save abandoned children from the chaos following Haiti’s earthquake.

SANITATION

Relief officials are scrambling to confront a sanitation crisis that could spread malaria, cholera and other diseases throughout chaotic camps packed with hundreds of thousands of survivors. Shortages of food, clean water, adequate shelter and latrines are creating a potential spawning ground for epidemics in a country with an estimated 1 million homeless.

EVACUATION

The U.S. military has halted flights carrying victims to the United States because of an apparent dispute over where seriously injured patients should be taken for treatment.

It was unclear exactly what prompted the decision to suspend the flights, or when it would end. Military officials said some U.S. states were refusing to take patients, though they wouldn’t say which states.

AIRPORTS

The U.S. military is assessing Haitian airports to which it can divert military traffic to allow Port-au-Prince’s congested international airport to return to its civilian functions, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Rick Kaiser.

Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport is being strained by international relief efforts, with more than 160 flights a day landing at one point.

RUBBLE

The rubble from destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince could easily fill to the limit five football stadiums the size of New Orleans’ Superdome.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Rick Kaiser said Haiti’s government could put the rubble to good use — perhaps building an artificial reef to augment fishing or using it as landfill to reinforce Haiti’s many eroded mountains and ravines, thus preventing mudslides.

PORT

After temporary repairs by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Port-au-Prince’s earthquake-damaged port now can handle some 2½ times the number of containers it was dealing with before the disaster. The port’s northern pier collapsed entirely under water in the earthquake, and the partially collapsed southern pier received further damage from aftershocks.