(Updates with latest information on airport)
LONDON (AlertNet) - Relief workers, vital aid supplies and equipment are being rushed to Haiti after a massive earthquake that killed thousands, but collapsed infrastructure is hampering the international aid effort.
Aid workers and reporters on the ground say supplies so far have only been trickling in.
Finding and helping survivors is the first priority, but Haitians are having to dig through the rubble with their hands, with little help from specialist teams.
Clearing heavy rocks requires equipment but roads into the capital Port-au-Prince are partially blocked following the 7.0 quake which struck the Caribbean island on Tuesday.
The airport in Port-au-Prince was shut temporarily after the earthquake. It has since reopened for military, humanitarian and private flights only, but its capacity to handle flights is reduced, the United Nations' office for humanitarian affairs OCHA said in a statement.
Only planes that do not require air traffic control can land. Planes cannot refuel and the airport can only handle four aircraft at a time, OCHA said.
"Port-au-Prince airport runway is operational but apparently the problem is the control tower that's not working and there's no one to authorise flights," Hauke Hoops, regional emergency coordinator for aid agency CARE International, told AlertNet from Santo Domingo in the neighbouring Dominican Republic before boarding a private small aircraft for Port-au-Prince on Thursday.
Santo Domingo is fast becoming the humanitarian hub for the Haiti disaster. Aid teams and journalists are descending on the city from around the world and from there trying to get on planes or drive across the border to Haiti. OCHA is trying to coordinate the relief effort.
"The control tower problems (in Port-au-Prince) are the main thing - that's got to get working, otherwise it's almost impossible logistically," said Marc DuBois, executive director of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Britain. "We had two planes ready to go yesterday but they just couldn't get there."
DuBois said the condition of roads from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince was unclear. "We don't really have enough information."
Some aid groups were looking into taking boats from Santo Domingo into Haiti but there was uncertainty about the port capacity of the Haitian capital, he added.
COMMUNICATIONS STILL DOWN
Flooding the devastated Haitian capital with aid workers would present its own problems, aid workers said. Scores of buildings are damaged and dangerous to sleep in.
"Even when we get to Port-au-Prince, it's about logistics. There's a lot of destruction. So far, it's not very clear where all the staff will stay and how to allocate people," said Hoops of CARE.
The airport has become a safe base for the aid workers and journalists who have made it to Port-au-Prince. There are reports of violence and looting in parts of the city.
Relief teams are trying to do a quick assessment of needs. Immediate priorities are search and rescue, medical services and supplies, clean water and sanitation, emergency shelter, food and telecommunications, OCHA said.
As aid workers arrived in Port-au-Prince or Santo Domingo, one of the main problems was communicating with people on the ground. Some mobile networks that worked briefly on Wednesday were no longer working.
Telecommunications charity Telecoms Sans Frontieres is providing support. Communications will also improve as more aid workers and foreign journalists arrive with satellite telephones.
"Our biggest problem is that we're still not in full contact with the office," said Anjali Kwatra, head of news at ActionAid.
Oxfam's Louis Belanger, making his way to the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, said communicating with local staff was a major challenge for most aid agencies. Belanger said he expected aid to start arriving in larger quantities at the end of the week.
TEAMS ALREADY ON THE GROUND
As international workers struggle to reach Port-au-Prince, charities with large teams already operating in Haiti before the earthquake are best placed to provide aid.
The Haiti-based team of Caritas Internationalis was on a training course outside Haiti's capital when the quake struck.
"They went into operation immediately, and that evening they started distributing sanitation kits and tents," said Matthew Carter, humanitarian director at Cafod, the Catholic relief organisation of which Caritas forms part.
Caritas has also trucked in supplies from other districts of Haiti. However, Caritas said in a statement it had no supplies left and needed tents, covers, clothing, water, food, first aid, drugs, flashlights and batteries.
"The international response team is on its way and they'll arrive in Haiti later today," Carter added.
Worldvision already had some relief supplies in Haiti but was rushing 18 tonnes more from warehouses in Denver, Colorado, with a flight scheduled to arrive in the Haitian capital early on Friday.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was airlifting 86 metric tonnes of high-energy biscuits - enough for half a million emergency meals - from a hub in El Salvador.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) dispatched one plane from Geneva on Thursday morning, with additional staff including a surgeon, engineers and specialists in reuniting families separated by disasters.
"ThereÂ?s another plane that was supposed to be loaded this afternoon in Geneva and leaves later today. It's a cargo plane with 40 tonnes of supplies, mainly medical supplies," said Anna Schaaf, IFRC spokesperson in Geneva.
The United States was sending 3,500 soldiers and 300 medical personnel to help with disaster relief and security in the devastated Caribbean capital, with the first of those scheduled to arrive on Thursday. The Pentagon was also sending an aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.
(Additional reporting by James Kilner in London)
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