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Haitians struggling with daily living in tent cities near this devastated capital were skeptical on Thursday of massive aid pledged for reconstruction, as they face the urgent need to find something to eat. "Money to do what? To rebuild? Up to now I've seen nothing," asked Pierre Belize, who like many living in tents since their hillside homes crumbled in the January 12 earthquake has had a hard time meeting even his basic needs. Most have been issued small "igloo" tents or sheets stamped with the logo of an international aid organisation for shelter. And most lament the same thing:...

SANTIAGO, CHILE -- The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to one of the world's most popular wine industries, sending rivers of merlot and cabernet sauvignon pouring from cracked barrels and vast storage tanks onto warehouse floors. "That was hard to watch," said Pablo Morande Jr., who said he looked on as 2 1/2 million liters of wine sloshed into the ground at his vineyard in Chile's battered wine country. Vintners and analysts of an industry that is the fourth-leading wine exporter to the United States after Italy, France and Australia...

Looters pillaged shops, homes and even attacked a fire station in the burning Chilean city of Concepcion, as rescuers try to find quake survivors. Police fired tear gas to try to disperse an angry crowd that set fire to the Bigger supermarket after they were prevented from entering. Black smoke billowed out over the ruins of Concepcion, one of the cities worst hit by Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, which has killed more than 720 people. "It's full, they have water, food, diapers, but the police won't let us go inside," complained one man standing next to the supermarket after a curfew...

The death toll from last month's Haiti earthquake has risen to more than 217,000, while the focus turned to providing shelter for the homeless before heavy rains and the hurricane season come. "There are people who put forth the figure of 230,000, but we have counted a bit more than 217,000. These are verified figures," Interior Minister Paul Bien-Aime said. Earlier, the government said it buried 170,000 bodies in mass graves in the month since the January 12 quake. The communications ministry said a statement from President Rene Preval that 270,000 bodies were buried contained a typographical error, and that...

Haiti's premier is begging foreign donors to back the reconstruction of his quake-hit country as looting and chaotic food handouts show the grim conditions facing survivors. Nearly two weeks after the disaster, which killed around 150,000 people and left a million homeless, international powers meeting in Montreal heard that it would take at least a decade to rebuild the stricken Caribbean nation. Haitian police shot two people in the head as scavengers plundered the debris in the ruined heart of Port-au-Prince, while thousands more people joined a mass exodus from squalid tent camps in the capital. "The country is ravaged,...

CROIX DES BOUQUETS, HAITI -- Aid organizations struggling to shelter more than 600,000 Haitians made homeless by the earthquake said Sunday that there are only 10,000 tents in the country, and that they remain in a warehouse, relegating the population to many more nights in squalid camps and on street sidewalks. "We have a severe shortage of tents," said Niurka Pineiro of the International Organization for Migration, the lead agency tasked with creating immediate solutions for Haitians left without a roof over their heads.

Haiti's government has claimed the toll from the country's earthquake could rise to as many as 300,000 dead. The confirmed death toll was raised to 150,000 on Sunday, but that was only the count of bodies so far found and collected in the capital Port-au-Prince. It did not include those recovered in other areas like the shattered city of Leogane, near the earthquake epicentre, and Jacmel on the southern coast.

THE number of people killed in last week's devastating Haitian earthquake has risen to 75,000, while 250,000 were injured and a million left homeless, the Haitian government said yesterday. The updated figures were contained in an statement issued by Haiti's civil defence department, which said the beleaguered Caribbean nation is in desperate need of temporary shelters, water, food, medical supplies and counselors. One week ago, Haiti was hit by a massive 7.0-magnitude quake which shattered homes and buried citizens under tonnes of rubble across a broad area around the capital Port au Prince. The statement said half of the buildings...

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Prayers of thanks and cries for help rose from Haiti's huddled homeless yesterday, the sixth day of a humanitarian crisis that was straining the world's ability to respond and igniting violence amid the rubble of Port-au-Prince. Haitian police struggled to scatter hundreds of stone-throwing looters in the city's Old Market. Elsewhere downtown, amid the smoke from bonfires burning uncollected bodies, gunfire rang out and bands of machete-wielding young men roamed the streets, faces hidden by bandanas. Aid groups complained of skewed priorities and a supply bottleneck at the US-controlled airport. The general in charge said the US military was...

Desperate Haitians scrambled Sunday to find food and water and guarded their meager possessions against the advance of looters as the U.S. and other nations struggled to jump-start a sluggish relief effort. Even as Navy and Coast Guard ships arrived offshore, a round-the-clock airlift intensified and additional dignitaries appeared, the frantic victims of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake were growing more fearful as they pleaded for help and security in a lawless city.

Haitian President Rene Preval said: "The damage I have seen here can be compared to the damage you would see if the country was bombed for 15 days. It is like in a war." The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated much of the hilly coastal city on Tuesday also collapsed the elegant presidential palace and his own home. Authorities in Haiti, already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, are saying they believe the death toll will be between 100,000 and 200,000 and that three-quarters of the city will need to be rebuilt.

When an earthquake ravages a country as poor and urbanized as Haiti, it produces the cruelest kind of synergy, as poverty breeds cramped living quarters that are left even more vulnerable by substandard construction work.

(English-language translation) The National Hostosiano Independence Movement (MINH) severely criticized the position taken by Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño to subordinate Puerto Rican aid to the population of Haiti to orders from the United States Army's Southern Command. "It hurts that Governor Fortuño conditions our aid to the dictates of the Southern Command. The militarization of humanitarian aid to Haiti which United States President Barack Obama promotes is an attempt to have the United States Army save face, something that is worthy of condemnation from our point of view," MINH Co-President Héctor L. Pesquera said. "Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, and the...

Here is a video report on the plan for close to 10,000 U.S. Military Personnel to be on the ground in Haiti, or on ships just offshore by Monday. The speed with which everything can be put in place is being hampered there by the fact that the Port-Au-Prince Airport has only one usable runway, and there are so many planes needing to use it. An entire brigade of 3,500 from the 82nd Airborne is expected to be on the ground by this weekend to provide security in the devastated area. The Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson should arrive on...

Here is a video report on the desperate situation in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, where the city is described as being "on edge" as lack of food, water, and shelter are taking their toll on the people. The streets are described as being the "roads of the dead" as bodies are everywhere, with not enough room in the cemeteries to bury them all. . . . (VIDEO)

Desperate Haitians have set up roadblocks with corpses in Port-au-Prince to demand quicker relief efforts after a massive earthquake killed tens of thousands and left countless others homeless. Angry survivors staged the protest as international aid began arriving in the Haitian capital to help a nation traumatized by a magnitude 7.0 quake that flattened homes and government buildings. More than 48 hours after the disaster, tens of thousands of people have clamoured for food and water and help digging out relatives still missing under the rubble. Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, says he saw at least two downtown...

Haitians have begun blocking their roads with corpses in a dramatic protest against the delay in aid at the capital of Port-au-Prince. PHOTOS: Earthquake devastation rocks HaitiThe sight was witnessed by TIME magazine photographer Shaul Schwarz, who told Reuters news agency that he saw two roadblocks in the city formed entirely of dead bodies jammed together. "They are starting to block the roads with bodies; it's getting ugly out there. People are fed up with getting no help," he was reported as saying. (READ MORE: Despair as Haiti sees little sign of aid) In the third night since the quake,...

Two days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck beneath Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some of the massive damage is becoming more apparent. Rescue teams are arriving, aid groups are trying their best to battle huge logistical challenges, bodies are being identified, and some medical care is being given. Rescue teams from all over the world have joined the recovery effort, as the United States pledged $100 million in relief efforts. The Red Cross ventured an estimate of up to 50,000 deaths, as bodies at the local morgues overflowed into the streets. Collected here are some more scenes from this devastated region -...

Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, said he saw at least two downtown roadblocks formed with bodies of earthquake victims and rocks. "They are starting to block the roads with bodies, it's getting ugly out there, people are fed up with getting no help," he said. President Barack Obama has promised Haitians they would not be forgotten, offering $100 million in immediate earthquake aid and the backing of every element of US power. A large-scale US military and civilian aid operation has gained momentum with Washington sending rescue teams, ships, helicopters, planes, a floating hospital, emergency supplies and more...

Desperate Haitians turned rubble-strewn streets and parks into makeshift hospitals and refugee camps on Thursday in the absence of any noticeable response from authorities in Haiti after Tuesday's earthquake. With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the presidential palace, a string of ministries and the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, Haiti faces a dangerous vacuum in security and government. The Caribbean nation of 9 million people, the poorest in the western hemisphere, has a turbulent history of conflict, social turmoil, dictatorship, fragile institutions and devastating natural catastrophes. Many in the capital Port-au-Prince picked away at shattered buildings...