150,000 Bodies Buried in Haiti; Death Toll Could Top 300,000

Haitian authorities say more than 150,000 bodies have been buried in Haiti since the devastating January 12th earthquake. Haiti's Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue suggested the death toll could rise to 300,000. Lassegue said, "Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble." As many as 800,000 Haitians are now homeless in the capital of Port-au-Prince. To deal with the housing crisis, Haitian officials have announced plans to house 400,000 survivors in tent cities outside the capital of Port-au-Prince, but the International Organization for Migration said it could take weeks to search out sites suitable for the tent cities. The organization says 100,000 tents are still needed. An estimated 200,000 residents of Port-au-Prince have already fled for the countryside or other cities in Haiti. Up to 100,000 people have returned to the region around the coastal city of Gonaives in northern Haiti, a city abandoned by many after two devastating floods in six years. Many survivors of the earthquake have still not received medical attention. Dr. Mill Etienne is a Haitian American neurosurgeon aboard the US Navy’s floating hospital, The Comfort.

Dr. Mill Etienne: "Many of these patients, because their legs, for example, were crushed a week ago, they didn't get immediate medical attention. A lot of them were stuck in a building or a house for two, three, four, five days before they were discovered. So what happens is, for a lot of those patients, their legs are dying. And having that dead leg there puts you at increased risk for infection. And that infection in the leg can actually kill the patient. So we are having to do a lot of amputations."