Hope for Haitian Children Foundation, Inc proudly announces the arrival of our first shipment in Haiti. We are patiently awaiting the arrival of our second container. The second container should also reach Haiti this week. Again, we would like to thank all our donors for making this possible.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING THE PEOPLE OF HAITI!

HOPE FOR HAITIAN CHILDREN FOUNDATION, INC. loaded their first container for Haiti. On hand Saturday, February 27, 2010 to assist with the effort were local volunteers from the New Orleans community, and volunteers from the U. S. Marine Corps who hand loaded the entire container.

YELE.ORG has agreed to sponsor the entire cost of shipping the first container to Port au Prince. Supplies will then be forwarded on ground to the two orphanages, and to the town of Leogane, outside Port au Prince.

There are at least 2 containers of supplies remaining in the warehouse for shipment, as soon as sponsors can be found. Container shipping cost are approximately $7,000.00 which included the container, shipping to Haiti, unloading in Haiti, custom and other fees, ground transportation to the orphanages (2) and to the town of Leogane.

Any organization or group who would like to sponsor a container shipment should go to the website, HOPE FOR HAITIAN CHILDREN FOUNDATION, INC. http://www.hopeforhaitianchildrenfoundation.org This is an excellent opportunity to assist the people of Haiti. Financial donations are welcomed.

This is not an official update from HFHCF, this is my personal update and appeal for your assistance.

Please do not donate any more clothes.

I am suggesting WATER, Tarps, Rope, Tents, Air Mattresses

Food Items: rice, sugar, peanut butter, crackers, dried beans, dried peas, and other food items that are part of the Haitian diet.

We give thanks for YELE and Wyclef Jean's assistance to HFHCF.

claudette

Mayimuna

Local earthquake survivor returns home from humanitarian mission

Reported by: Sabrina Wilson, Reporter

Email: swilson@fox8tv.net

Last Update: 1/29 6:59 pm

New Orleans - Local nurse Marie Poux, who survived the earthquake while in her homeland helping orphans, returned home with an emotional account of the harrowing experience. Met by friends at Armstrong International Airport on Friday, Poux said, "I saw children dying next to me…all I remember I put my knees on the ground and I raised my two hands to GOD and I said have mercy." Poux operates an orphanage in Haiti.

Poux told FOX 8 News that the killer tremors happened on her birthday right after she left a Haitian hospital. She said, "It was my birthday that day so my plan was for my birthday to visit the hospital I was born [in] and to give gifts to the children that were born the same day with me and a special gift for the one born the same time with me." Poux said on the way from the hospital they stopped at a gas station and then the tremors started. She said, "I got out the car because the car was jumping up and down. People were calling me doctor, I said no I'm not a doctor, but I don't know GOD may give me inspiration what to do for those people. It was very, very hard, I mean I keep seeing those faces, those cries."

Poux runs an organization that works to help Haiti's young, called 'Hope for Haitian Children Foundation. After leaving the airport she went to the Community Book Center in New Orleans where tears flowed as she walked through the door. At that site, donations collected by Poux's foundation were being boxed up and Poux was more than excited. "Everything here are needed because I have babies right now that I visited in camps were born maybe three months, four months and no diapers on the kids, not even a piece of cloth," Poux stated.

"We are so happy that Marie is here now to give us first hand information of what is critically needed on the ground in Haiti, said Vera Warren Williams of the Hope for Haitian Children Foundation.

If you would like to contribute to the foundation, log on to http://www.hopeforhaitianchildrenfoundation.org

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- A strong aftershock rocked Haiti on Wednesday morning just as much-needed medical aid was set to reach the earthquake-ravaged nation.

The 6.1-magnitude aftershock was about 6.2 miles deep, with an epicenter about 35 miles (60 kilometers) west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

It rattled people struggling to recover from the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that walloped the impoverished country January 12, killing at least 72,000 people.

Such a strong tremor can pose significant danger in a nation where damaged buildings are teetering precariously. The aftershock was the strongest to hit Haiti since last week's original quake, the USGS said.

The largest aftershock before Wednesday was magnitude 5.9, the agency said.

The 7.0 earthquake was 32 times stronger in terms of magnitude -- or energy released -- than the 6.1 temblor, said Carrieann Bedwell, a geophysicist with the USGS. That difference is what people feel on the ground, she said.

Patients at a hospital near Haiti's airport in Port-au-Prince immediately started praying as the ground shook like a ship rocking back and forth. They asked for forgiveness and protection, a nurse said.

Are you there? Share your images, video.

At least one injury was reported in the moments after the aftershock, which struck at 6:03 a.m. ET.

See the latest updates

The aftershock jolted Haiti as much-needed medical reinforcement approached offshore in the form of a state-of-the-art hospital aboard a U.S. naval ship.

The U.S. Navy ship Comfort is to arrive midmorning Wednesday in the flattened capital. U.S. helicopters will ferry patients aboard, bringing relief to overloaded hospitals and clinics.

Two severely injured Haitians already have been transported to the hospital ship as it sailed toward Haiti, the U.S. Defense Department said.

The patients -- a 6-year-old boy with a crushed pelvis and 20-year-old man with a broken skull and possibly fractured cervical vertebrae -- had been treated initially on the USS Carl Vinson, a U.S. aircraft carrier docked off the Haitian capital.

Full coverage | Twitter updates

The Comfort is carrying nearly 550 doctors, nurses, corpsmen, technicians and support staff, who will be joined by 350 other medical staffers once the ship reaches Haiti, according to the U.S. Southern Command. The ship will have six operating rooms available and can house up to 1,000 patients.

More than a week after the devastating earthquake, the injured still streamed in to hospitals that were struggling to get back into working order.

Surgeries resumed Tuesday at University Hospital, the country's largest, said Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization.

iReport: Search list for the missing and found

At the general hospital in Port-au-Prince, doctors were working under stressful conditions in facilities away from the main building, which was deemed unsafe.

"We have run out of IVs and IV needles and IV fluids," said Dr. Mark Hyman of the medical relief group Partners in Health. "We've run out of surgical supplies. We have to wash with vodka, and we have to operate with hacksaws because we don't have enough operating tools."

The military is going to help with organization and supplies, Hyman said. "They're going to help us get electricity, they're going to help us get food, they're going to help us get tents, they're going to help us get all the operating supplies in," he said.

Early Wednesday, 3 million Haitians were still in need of food, water, shelter and medical assistance, the United Nations estimated.

Some officials said relief efforts have started to turn the corner.

"Every day we reach out further," said Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, the Southern Command deputy commander who's in charge of U.S. military operations in Haiti. "We are moving in the right direction."

The U.S. military has delivered 200,000 bottles of water and more than 600,000 rations to Haitians, Keen said.

John Holmes, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, agreed the situation slowly is improving.

"We are making progress," Holmes said. "But it's very frustrating that it takes so long to get as many supplies, doctors and hospitals that are needed."

The aid effort has frustrated some, with a few organizations saying the bottleneck at the Port-au-Prince airport and mismanagement in other areas have hampered aid distribution.

Meanwhile, authorities said they believe about a third of the bodies that will make up the final death toll have been buried.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that at least 72,000 bodies had been recovered, not including the unknown number buried by families or collected by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

It was unclear how many of the dead had been identified before burial and how many of those burials occurred in mass graves.

Pan American Health Organization, which is coordinating the health-sector response, offered a preliminary estimate of 200,000 dead.

At least 28 of them were Americans, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

But miraculous rescues were still taking place as people were being pulled out alive even after a week under rubble.

On Tuesday night, New York City Fire Department and Police Department rescuers pulled two children alive from the ruins of a two-story Port-au-Prince building. The boy, 8, and girl, 10, were taken to an Israeli tent hospital.

Earlier, rescuers pulled a survivor from the rubble near Haiti's national cathedral. Rescue crews said two other survivors might be under the same pile, though hopes faded in the evening.

In all, international rescue teams of about 1,700 people have rescued 121 people, the United Nations said.

Outside Haiti, people have contributed more than $220 million to major U.S. relief groups, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations.

But the world's generosity continued to overwhelm the ability of the airport in Port-au-Prince. The result: Some badly needed aid was left sitting on the tarmac.

U.S. Army Maj. Daniel Allyn said flights would be diverted to two alternate ports of entry within the next day or two to relieve the pressure. On an average day before the earthquake, the airport was handling 13 commercial aircraft; in the days since, it was handling more than 200, Allyn said.

Some flights were diverted to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, causing congestion there, too, Andrus said.

Nevertheless, advances were being made: Roads that were impassable in the initial aftermath have been cleared, he said.

Dr. Rajiv Shah, the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, told reporters Tuesday night the U.S. response has been "swift, aggressive and coordinated."

Shah cited the U.S. donations of 18 water production units providing nearly 2 million liters of drinking water per day and nearly 17 million meals as examples.

In an interview with CNN's Amanpour, Haitian President Rene Preval applauded the progress aid workers have made in restoring electricity and communication, clearing roads, erecting shelters, distributing food and re-establishing hospitals.

Preval credited the international community, saying, "Without their help, it would be impossible for us to cope with the situation."

Watch Preval as he reacts to a "global catastrophe"

The U.N. Security Council approved sending an additional 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 police officers, and the port is expected to reopen next week, said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Fixing the port is a priority, because it is where fuel enters the country. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said this week that he would send 225,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel for use in Haiti.

About 2,000 U.S. troops were in Haiti, and more than 5,000 were offshore on ships, Allyn said. The U.S. military anticipated eventually having 10,000 troops in Haiti, he said.

CNN's Karl Penhaul, Alec Miran, Gary Tuchman and Justine Redman contributed to this report.

Haiti earthquake: UN says worst disaster ever dealt with

Predictions of the death toll from the Haitian earthquake have risen to 200,000 as mounting desperation at lack of aid threatens to tilt the country into anarchy.

By Philip Sherwell in New York and Colin Freeman

Published: 7:44PM GMT 16 Jan 2010

United Nations says the disaster is the worst it has ever dealt with Photo: REUTERS

With up to three million survivors still cut off from outside rescue efforts, the United Nations said the disaster was the worst it had ever dealt with.

Aid officials fear a lapse into all-out lawlessness in coming days unless US troops can get through with vital food, medicine and water deliveries, which are being hampered by the sheer scale of devastation. There were continued incidents of looting, and isolated reports of rescue workers being stoned by angry crowds.

Related Articles

Haiti rescuers still struggling without working airport, port or roads

British rescue teams pull three from the rubble

Haiti earthquake: looting and gun-fights break out

Haiti earthquake: 'Baby Doc’ Duvalier pledges £5m aid

Haiti earthquake: bodies dumped in mass graves

Haiti's President Preval: country like a war zone The UN's warning came as the full picture of the horror in the flattened capital of Port au Prince emerged. Haitian ministers claimed the body count could rise far beyond the 50,000 estimate made by the Red Cross officials on Friday, saying that 50,000 bodies had already been buried. Trucks piled high with corpses delivered them to mass graves outside the stricken city, with thousands more still lying uncollected on the streets or buried under heavy rubble.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," said interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."

If that casualty count is confirmed, it would make Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake one of the ten deadliest on record. The death toll would also rival that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed roughly 250,000 lives. However, officials with knowledge of both incidents said the Haitian disaster - which hit a country already barely functional - posed an infinitely tougher relief challenge.

"This is a historic disaster," said UN spokesman Elisabeth Byrs, whose own organisation has lost 36 local staff in the earthquake. "We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory. It is like no other."

The UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, added: "There have been some incidents where people were looting or fighting for food. They are desperate, they have been three days without food or any assistance.

"We have to make sure that the situation doesn't unravel, but for that we need very much to ensure that the assistance is coming as quickly as possible."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to land in Port au Prince on Saturday to meet with President Rene Preval, who himself has been rendered homeless by the tremor. The Haitian government has handed over control of its airport to the US military, which has landed 1,000 troops into the country already and will bring another 9,000 in coming days to supervise aid deliveries and ensure stability. Some US soldiers had to keep large crowds at bay outside the airport, where some aid supplies have now got stuck because of the difficulties of transporting them into the disaster zone. Doctors at some of the few functioning field clinics complained that they had already run out of medicines.

In Britain, which has sent teams of specialist rescue workers to Haiti, reports of the earthquake's appalling aftermath prompted a quick public response. The Disasters Emergency Committee said £10 million was raised in 24 hours.

International aid efforts have so far been bottlenecked because of damage to the port and airport, where numerous relief planes were unable to land last week because of lack of space and damage to the control towers. The US naval aircraft carrier Carl Vinson arrived off Haiti on Friday with 19 helicopters, opening up an alternative aid delivery channel. But after making 20 deliveries of water and energy drinks, it ran out of supplies by yesterday morning. "We have lift, we have communications, but we don't have much relief supplies to offer," said Rear Admiral Ted Branch.

"There are other supplies at the airport that are under the control of other agencies and we haven't yet coordinated together... unfortunately that doesn't happen overnight."

Some 27 international search and rescue teams, with 1,500 workers and 115 dogs are already active in the disaster zone. A team of British firefighters rescued a two-year-old girl buried beneath a collapsed kindergarten, pulling other corpses aside to get at her.

US rescuers also dug throughout Friday night at a collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people were feared trapped. They were about to give up, when they were told a cashier had managed to call someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.

The working conditions for rescue teams remain extremely tough, however. Even with armed security teams, most deemed it unsafe to continue working at night. "It isn't just the challenges of transport and communications, it is security as well," said one UN official. "One rescue team had stones thrown at them."

Haiti's threadbare police force has been largely powerless to keep law and order, although one local police chief said that they were rounding up known gang leaders and criminals, some of whom escaped from a prison damaged during the tremors.

So far the looting and robbery has not been as bad as feared. But rescue officials sense the mood in the city is sullening, and believe violence could become widespread if a substantial aid effort does not arrive soon. On Saturday, four days into the crisis, many Haitians were still digging for loved ones with their bare hands, while others simply wandered the streets in a daze. The stifling heat has made the shortage of drinking water and stench from corpses all the more unbearable.

Yesterday Russel Honore, the retired US general who coordinated the military response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster that devastated New Orleans, said the aid effort for Haiti had been too cautious to start off with.

"The next morning after the earthquake, I assumed there would be airplanes delivering aid," he said. "What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red."

Washington denied his claims, saying the operation had been done as quickly as possible. But either way, the scale of the disaster means the initial stages of emergency aid may now only be the beginning. Officials say that up to three-quarters of Port au Prince now need rebuilding, and that US troops may have to be in the country for some six months. Failure to stabilise the situation could lead to a mass exodus of refugees, both into neighbouring Dominica, and possibly also in boats bound for the US.