The Prime Minister of Haiti said today that he feared an earthquake which devastated Port-au-Prince could have killed “well over 100,000” people.
The quake struck the Haitian Capital yesterday afternoon, bringing down dozens of key buildings, including the Presidential Palace and the UN Peace Keeping Headquarters, where more than 100 UN Personnel were buried in the rubble.
As Western countries and international relief agencies began a huge rescue operation, Jean-Max Bellerive, the Haitian Premier, said that the death toll could climb into seven figures – which would make it one of the most lethal in history.
“I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out,” he told CNN.
Here are some pictures of the devestation of the Haiti’s earthquake.
A woman comes out of rubble in Haiti
As darkness fell, desperate Port-au-Prince residents were digging through the rubble, searching for friends and relatives. Thousands more sat on the darkened streets in a daze or gathered in public squares, singing hymns.
This morning, they began stacking up the corpses along the streets. Relatives of the victims passed down the lines trying to find their loved ones.
The quake brought down a major hotel from which about 200 tourists and foreign workers were missing. The five-storey headquarters of the UN mission in Haiti was also destroyed in the quake and the Tunisian diplomat who heads the mission was thought to be among the dead.