LONDON (AlertNet) - Aid agencies scrambled on Wednesday to respond to a major earthquake in Haiti, predicting a disaster of "catastrophic" proportions in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Relief organisations launched financial appeals and prepared emergency teams to fly in to assess the scale of the disaster but details were scarce and communications poor, with some agencies still struggling to contact their staff and volunteers on the ground.
Thousands are feared dead and many more homeless after a 7.0 magnitude quake rocked Haiti at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Tuesday. The tremor, the most powerful quake to hit Haiti in more than 200 years, toppled the presidential palace, brought down a five-story U.N. building and destroyed hillside shanties and schools.
"It's a complete and utter disaster and what we're worried about now is the security sitution, which is worsening as people scramble for food," Jane Moyo, head of media relations at ActionAid, told AlertNet.
"Haiti is already an insecure environment. We're obviously going to take that into consideration," added Care International spokeswoman Melanie Brooks. The charity said in a statement it expected the disaster to be "catastrophic".
Based on previous experiences of earthquakes, search and rescue, medical attention, shelter, food, water and sanitation were relief agencies' top priorities in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
The quake's epicentre was only 10 miles (16 km) from Port-au-Prince, where some 1 million people live, many of them in sprawling shanty towns and extreme poverty. Around 10 million people live in Haiti.
"Because of the materials used to make buildings, the structures are very fragile," Camilo Palacios Avila of WorldVision told AlertNet from Haiti's capital. "We don't know how many people are affected, but the magnitude is very large."
Sophie Perez, CARE's country director in Haiti, said search and rescue was the first priority.
"The immediate need is to rescue people trapped in the rubble, then to get people food and water," she said in a statement. "We're particularly worried about the children, because so many schools seem to have collapsed. Children were still in school in the afternoon when the earthquake hit, so there are many children trapped. It's horrifying."
Medical charity MSF said its facilities had suffered signficant damage, patients had been wounded and staff were treating an influx of injured people.
APPEALS
France said it feared everyone inside the United Nations headquarters had been killed. Many aid agencies had managed to locate their members of staff but were still struggling to find volunteers. ActionAid was still trying to locate three of its 20 staff on the ground.
"Many people have been killed by falling debris and there are still many more trapped under the rubble, in desperate need of assistance," said Nick Guttman, head of Christian Aid's humanitarian division, in a statement.
Christian Aid's building collapsed and three people had to be rescued from the rubble.
"It is extremely difficult to move around the city to assess needs. What is certain is that the quake has had a massive impact on a population already reeling from other recent disasters," said Ricardo Conti, head of delegation in Haiti for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in a statement.
Many major charities launched appeals for donations and several pledged funds from their emergency funds.
Christian Aid launched a 1 million pound emergency appeal for victims of the quake. The American Red Cross pledged an initial $200,000 to help communities affected by the quake. It also said it was making available relief supplies from a warehouse in Panama that would provide for basic needs for about 5,000 families.
The Inter-American Development Bank said it would provide $200,000 in immediate emergency aid. The World Bank, which said its local offices were destroyed but that most staff were accounted for, plans to send a team to help Haiti assess damage and plan a recovery.
U.S. President Barack Obama promised immediate aid and the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami said it had mobilized cutters and aircraft to positions close to Haiti to give humanitarian assistance as needed. France said it was sending in rescue services.
The ICRC said stocks of non-food relief items were being made available for up to 10,000 families, and additional staff would be deployed as soon as possible. The ICRC's first focus would be on providing medical aid for survivors and recovering and identifying the dead, it said.
Care allocated an initial 100,000 euros from its own emergency funds to the disaster and launched an emergency appeal. Irish agency GOAL said it had allocated 250,000 euros from its emergency fund as an immediate response and was sending a response team later on Wednesday.
(additional reporting by Katie Nguyen and Alex Whiting in London)
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