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Haiti Pleads For Better Aid Effort, 16-Year-Old Survivor Found

The New York Times 01/27/2010 15:58
Darlene Etienne is rescued from the rubble

Darlene Etienne is rescued from the rubble


Haiti appealed to foreign governments and charities on Wednesday to do more to help earthquake victims as rescuers pulled a teenage girl out of the rubble 15 days after her Port-au-Prince home collapsed around her.



The girl, named Darline and believed to be 16, was severely dehydrated and had a leg injury, French and Haitian rescuers said. "I don't know how she happened to resist that long. It's a miracle," said rescue worker J.P. Malaganne.

The girl was one of more than 130 people rescued alive since the January 12 quake devastated Haiti's coastal capital, killed as many as 200,000 and threw the country into chaos.

President Rene Preval said Haiti would indefinitely postpone February 28 parliamentary elections and he would not seek to stay in office after his term expires in February 2011.

That means his government will have just over one year to rebuild the impoverished Caribbean nation before handing off the task to new leadership.

Aid groups and troops from around the world have struggled to distribute food, water and medical care to an estimated 3 million Haitians injured or left homeless in the magnitude-7.0 earthquake.

"I am not in a position to criticize anybody, not in the least people who have come here to help me," Preval told a news conference. "What I am staying is, what everybody is saying is, that we need a better coordination."

Some food handouts have turned ugly, with U.N. peacekeepers using tear gas and warning shots to control jostling crowds. People housed in ragtag encampments around Port-au-Prince have complained that no food has reached them. Some have expressed anger at Preval for failing to play a more public role and sending few workers to remove garbage and feed the homeless.


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