Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Rescuers from around the world poured into Haiti today, overwhelming the country’s only international airport as Haiti’s Red Cross estimated as many as 50,000 people died in the country’s Jan. 12 earthquake.
Haiti’s government stopped accepting flights into the country’s airspace because the airport’s ramps are full and there’s no fuel for planes to fly home. Nine flights from the U.S. were circling and waiting to land this afternoon, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration barred U.S. flights from taking off for Haiti until the airport is cleared.
French president Nicholas Sarkozy said in Paris he’d call for a “major reconstruction and development conference.”
Almost 48 hours after the magnitude 7.0 tremor hit the capital, Port-au-Prince, destroying homes, hospitals, schools and landmarks such as the presidential palace and national cathedral, thousands of people wandered the city’s streets or dug to rescue those trapped beneath collapsed structures.
“There’s a window of time whereby we have the greatest ability to impact the search and rescue portion of what’s likely to be a very long mission,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today in Washington.
“I’m hearing planes and or helicopters ... yesterday there were none to speak of,” Richard Morse, an American musician living in Port-au-Prince, posted on Twitter today. “It changes the atmosphere. I hope there is help on the ground.
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