13 January 2010
3:42 pm PDT: Another aftershock with a magnitude of 5.1 has reportedly taken place between Port-au-Prince and Leogane at 5:21 pm EDT.
3:35 pm PDT: CNN has footage of bodies lying in the streets of Port-au-Prince. The cable network’s Gary Tuchman reports that “no emergency officials in sight, and residents are watching the flies to find out where to dig in the rubble.”
2:11 pm PDT: We’re taking a break from live-blogging for a bit to cover some other developments. But be sure to check back within the hour for updates.
2:03: pm PDT: Felix Augustin, Haiti’s general counsel to the UN, told CNN that the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, “is flattened.”
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who is reporting live from Haiti, viewed Port-au-Prince from a helicopter and said the sight was “incredibly shocking” and “eerie.”
1:48 pm PDT: At a State Department briefing earlier today, USAID Ambassador Raj Shah said the federal government has “two urban search-and-rescue units on their way, both are units with 72 individuals, people who have significant training and significant equipment and technical capacity to conduct search and rescue in urban settings, to drill through and clear as much as is possible rubble in order to try and identify individuals that can be saved and continue with the mission of saving lives.”
“We’re working aggressively across the various agencies of the federal government, including FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, to identify additional units that will be able to deploy as rapidly as possible. And we’re working hand-in-hand with the Department of Defense and General Fraser to make sure that we have the transport and logistics to get these assets into the country and efficiently operating as quickly as possible.”
Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said the US has about 172 embassy personnel in Haiti and as of 8 am EDT “just about all of them” were accounted for. Mills said there eight embassy personnel who were wounded and four who suffered serious injuries.
1:28 pm PDT: This is a video of a rescue attempt at a UN building in Haiti where a UN official said as many as 100 people are still trapped beneath the rubble.
The New Dark Age 
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