Even as U.S. troops landed in Seahawk helicopters Tuesday on the manicured lawn of the National Palace, the colossal efforts to help Haiti are proving inadequate because of the scale of the disaster and the limitations of the world's governments. Expectations exceeded what money, will and military might have been able to achieve so far in the face of unimaginable calamity.
"God has abandoned us! The foreigners have abandoned us!" yelled Micheline Ursulin, tearing at her hair as she rushed past a large pile of decaying bodies.
Three of her children died in the quake and her surviving daughter is in the hospital with broken limbs and a serious infection.
Rescue groups continue to work, even though time is running out for those buried by the quake. A Mexican team created after that nation's 1985 earthquake rescued Ena Zizi, 69. She had survived a week buried in the ruins of the residence of Haiti's Roman Catholic archbishop, who died. Other teams pulled two women from a collapsed university building.
But most efforts are focused on getting aid to survivors.
"We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don't know whose responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon," said Sophia Eltime, a 29-year-old mother of two who has been living under a bedsheet with seven members of her extended family. She said she had not eaten since Jan. 12.
It is not just Haitians questioning why aid has been so slow for victims of one of the worst earthquakes in history — an estimated 200,000 dead, 250,000 injured and 1.5 million homeless. Officials in France and Brazil and aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders have complained of bottlenecks, skewed priorities and a crippling lack of leadership and coordination...
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