Hundreds of Thousands Feared Dead in Haiti

Haitian senator says toll could be 500K, but admits no one knows
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2010 1:28 PM CST
Hundreds of Thousands Feared Dead in Haiti
Bodies lie in the rubble along Delmas Road in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, today.   (AP Photo)

Haiti's prime minister says several hundred thousand could have perished in yesterday’s earthquake. “I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out,” Jean-Max Bellerive tells CNN. He said it was difficult to discern where the masses crowding the streets had lived before the disaster. “But so many, so many buildings, so many neighborhoods totally destroyed, and some neighborhoods we don't even see people.”

The survivors are taking the aftermath "with maturity," Bellerive continues. People are trying to help each other on the streets.” Elsewhere, Sen. Youri Latortue tells the AP that the toll could rise as high as half a million people. The Red Cross estimates 3 million people, or a third of the population, were affected by the quake. (More Haiti earthquake dead stories.)

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