Quake hit Haiti supermarket collapses

With people inside:

HAITI: A damaged Haitian supermarket collapsed Tuesday with several people inside and rescue teams rushed to save them as the devastating January 12 quake wreaked more havoc nearly a month after it struck.

Rescue workers sawed away at debris under the glare of flood lights, trying to find an estimated five to eight people who were in the Caribbean Market when it collapsed, at one point asking for silence so they could listen for victims. The search got underway as bodies retrieved from the site before the collapse those killed in the quake last month lay nearby covered in white sheets and awful smells hung in the air.

“There were looters inside the building,” site supervisor Meir Vaknin told AFP. “I was trying to get rid of them and when the building fell there were some of them inside.”

He estimated five to eight people had been inside and said at least one was spotted alive after the collapse.

A Mexican rescue worker, Carlos Mendez, said they had found two people so far. Asked if they were alive, he said, “This is what we are going to find out.”

The five-story building had been popular with well-off Haitians and was the capital’s largest supermarket. It was badly damaged in the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, but remained partly standing.

Vaknin said the collapse occurred Tuesday as he was working at the site with an excavator to remove bodies still there from the quake.

A large excavator could be seen inside a hole in the ground.

“I was sitting in the excavator when it fell in,” he said. “I’m so lucky to be alive.” He said no one from his crew was hurt. At least two dozen rescue workers were at the scene, with US military and UN police sealing off the area.

Rescue workers were using cutting tools to try to reach people. Sparks flew as they cut with a saw then pulled away a tangled ball of metal.

The collapse came after the already stumbling relief effort was dealt a potential new blow earlier in the day when the WHO stopped providing free drugs to private clinics and NGOs after reports that patients were being charged. Port-Au-Prince, Wednesday, AFP