PORT-AU-PRINCE: Hundreds of thousands of Haitians will be living off foreign aid and in temporary housing for years to come, as experts warn rebuilding the quake-ravaged nation may take at least a decade.
Almost two weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shattered the lives of the nine million people in one of the world's poorest countries, a massive aid operation has cranked into place to provide food, water and shelter.
With the government on Saturday officially calling off the search and rescue efforts for any more survivors beneath the rubble, the focus for international aid organisations has switched to helping hundreds of thousands left destitute.
The Haitian government estimates more than 112,000 people were killed in the January 12 quake - making it the deadliest ever recorded in the Americas.
Most of the bodies which lay rotting for days on the streets in the chaotic aftermath of the quake have now been collected in a grim operation, and buried in mass graves outside the Caribbean nation's capital.
Almost 200,000 people were injured, when for almost a minute the plates along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault shook with such force that buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, and other towns like Leogane and Jacmel, toppled like decks of cards.
US naval vessels and floating hospitals have backed up an army of field and tents hospitals set up by aid organisations, amid accusations that scores may have died in the first few days because medical aid was too slow to arrive.
Isabel Lopez, of the World Health Organization, said 150 health facilities were now up and running in the city, but she added: "There is still a strong need for post operative care."
Around a million people were left homeless, the interior ministry estimates, and the government has embarked on a massive relocation programme to move 500,000 people to camps hastily erected in the countryside.
Chief UN spokesman Nicholas Reader said the Haitian government had identified 500 sites where tented encampments might be set up for those now living in squalid, makeshift camps.
"Haiti's recovery must begin with its people, strong, resilient and impatient to get to work rebuilding their lives and their country," UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said.
According to UN data, more than US$1.2 billion dollars has been pledged in funding to help Haiti.
Some 62 foreign search and rescue teams are still in Port-au-Prince, and helped pull a young man out of the rubble Saturday 11 days after the quake.
But with hopes almost extinguished of finding more survivors, the aid operation led by the United States and the United Nations is now concentrated on distributing tonnes of food and water to the needy.
And the needs are enormous. Even before the quake, 70 per cent of Haitians were living on less than two dollars a day.
But fears of an eruption of violence in a nation which has known decades of bloodshed and political upheaval have failed to materialize, with many praising the Haitians' dignified response among their despair.
There have been tales of neighbours sharing out their meagre supplies, and organising watches to keep looters and pillagers at bay.
"I think the people have been heroic," said former US president Bill Clinton, now UN special envoy to Haiti, as he toured one hospital last week.
Despite damage to the main airport in Port-au-Prince, it has been kept open under US military control, and aid flights are also now unloading on three other airstrips - including two in neighbouring Dominican Republic.
US forces, due to reach 20,000 troops, have also worked to reopen the damaged port to unblock logjams of aid, which has poured into the country from overseas.
"Haitians are grieving, but they are also buoyed by the generous outpouring of support from around the world," said Mark Fried of Oxfam.
"Despite the losses they have suffered, they are working hard to turn the empty lots, golf courses and churchyards where they have taken refuge into places where they can live in dignity."
But many organisations warn the coming weeks will be crucial in a race to provide more permanent shelter before the rainy season comes.
Michael Delaney, director of humanitarian response at Oxfam America, said there were serious fears of disease.
"There's concern over sewage, human waste. Very few of the hundreds of sites where people have set up camp have latrines set up," he told AFP, warning that if waste was washed into other areas "it will create a public health mess."
International donors meet Monday in Montreal to prepare a summit on rebuilding Haiti, amid hopes the quake may prove a turning point in the nation's history.
The UN, which suffered its worst ever disaster in the quake with the deaths of more than 40 UN staffers, has launched a programme to create 220,000 jobs in rubble removal and reconstruction, paying each person some five dollars a day.
"There is going to be a long and challenging recovery and we need sustained support," said Jonathan Reckford, chief executive officer of the organisation, Habitat for Humanity. "People need to think in terms of a 10-year time frame."
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