Haiti Quake Updates

By Rajesh Mirchandani BBC News, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The pink wheelbarrows from Oxfordshire are soon put to good use

Fifty tonnes of aid supplies tracked by the BBC from Oxfordshire in the UK are nearing the end of their journey to Haiti's quake-hit capital Port-au-Prince.

Apart from a few stretches littered with potholes, the road from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince is in quite good condition.

It snakes past the suburbs of the capital of the Dominican Republic, up and over hills wreathed in lush vegetation and soon into rural villages where grinding poverty is a way of life.

Around 200km (124 miles) west lies Jimani, the scruffy border city strung out along this road.

It is where thousands of Haitian refugees are living and where relief groups have set up clinics.

It is also the first real glimpse of the consequences of the earthquake.

Driven people

The aid convoy passed this way as it carried supplies and emergency equipment from Oxfam, paid for with British donations to the UK Disasters Emergency Committee's (DEC) Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

First stage: Aid leaves warehouse Second stage: Aid lands in region

In the border zone, it passed through a bustling market - a regular occurrence.

Commerce goes on even if much else in the country can't.

Small trucks packed with people and goods lead the way into the Haitian capital, 100km (62 miles) further west.

The journey from the frontier to the city centre should only take an hour or so, but the approach to this overcrowded city is jammed with traffic and makes for painfully slow progress.

It gives you time to look around - people are everywhere, as well as destruction.

Haitians here no longer seem dazed, they seem driven and barely notice the tumbled-down buildings that line the road.

The aid was taken to Oxfam's offices in the Petionville area.

It is normally a posh hilltop enclave, but it was one of the worst-hit places.

Large elegant villas have tumbled, intricately-wrought iron staircases hang twisted off once sturdy buildings and mounds of rubble line some roads and block others.

DEC APPEAL The Disasters Emergency Committee is co-ordinating an appeal to help the people of Haiti There are 13 charities involved including the British Red Cross, Islamic Relief and World Vision Donate via the DEC website or by calling 0370 60 60 900 DEC radio appeal Haiti: How to help

Who knows how many dead lie unclaimed in there?

Oxfam's offices consist of two adjacent three-storey buildings - one looks like it was sliced in half with the office interiors exposed through the broken walls.

The organisation lost several staff members.

Now the neighbouring building - which also sustained damage - houses dozens of its workers who have flown in to help.

Pallets of aid that have been transported thousands of miles lie in the courtyard: water bladders, tents, latrine blocks - and the BBC's pink wheelbarrows.

The next day, we travel a few minutes from Oxfam's offices to the Petionville Golf Club, a peaceful spot nestled among lush trees and next to the US ambassador's private residence.

But now US troops man the gate - their Humvee vehicles lined up in the car park while soldiers set up their quarters on the tennis courts.

Dirty job

On the hills and greens behind is a sea of humanity.

The golf course has become a refugee camp and is home to 30,000 earthquake survivors.

And this is where the pink wheelbarrows are put to use.

In one area, people are clearing brush and debris and carting it off in the barrows. Latrine blocks are being laid. These are the beginnings of a much-needed sanitation system.

Petionville golf course has been turned into a refugee camp

If disease were to break out in this camp, it would spread rapidly. Toilets won't stop it, but they might slow it down.

It's a dirty job, but many people are eager to do it.

That's because the wheelbarrows are not a hand-out, they are a job opportunity and those who use them will be paid for their work.

Oxfam's Andy Bastable, a public health expert who arrived soon after the earthquake, tells me the wheelbarrows are a way of helping Haitians help themselves - a small kick-start for a crumbled economy.

The camp is organised into zones, each with its own committee. One of the organisers, Louis Montas, is allocating wheelbarrows. There are not nearly enough tools for all the people who want them but he tells me 90 people will be able to work.

That is 90 out of 30,000.

"It's a small number," he tells me, "but we've only been working for a week and we're going to build toilets in the whole camp."

Haitians do not want to be dependent. Aid like this is a tiny drop in an ocean of misery.

But it's a start.

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By Gary Duffy BBC News, Santo Domingo

The BBC is tracking aid from Oxfordshire, including these wheelbarrows

It was the early hours of the morning when the British Airways flight arrived at the international airport at Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic.

Among the aid, which BA had carried free of charge, was 50 tonnes of supplies organised by Oxfam - emergency equipment paid for by the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee's Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

The fundraising effort has already reached more than £30m in one week.

The aid, which the BBC has been tracking from Oxfordshire, was swiftly unloaded and then the process began of preparing the cargo to be transported by truck approximately 250 miles to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

The flight also carried supplies from the UN's World Food Programme and Unicef.

With the airport there heavily congested, road transport from the neighbouring Dominican Republic has been an important way to get aid to the Haitian people affected by the earthquake.

This country is a popular tourist destination, but the airport at Santo Domingo is even busier than normal with up to 40 extra flights per day bringing aid into the country.

Loading up the lorries here in the UK is straightforward but once the consignment gets to Haiti, can Oxfam be sure it will reach the people who need it? BBC's Luisa Baldini Aid's first stage: Oxfam warehouse

Multiple aid agencies are involved, and around the edges of the main runway the work of loading and unloading aid is a continual process.

Oxfam says that with the announcement that the search for survivors is over, the focus should be on helping the Haitian people.

"The end of search and rescue efforts does not mean we can slow down. Relief and recovery for the survivors is the priority now," says Mark Fried, spokesman for the relief agency.

"Hundreds of thousands who lost everything but their lives need water for drinking and washing. They need latrines to contain the spread of disease. They need shelter and simple household items like cooking pots."

On Friday, respected medical journal The Lancet accused aid agencies and non-governmental organisations of competing against each other rather than working together.

Without naming any organisation, an editorial in the journal said: "NGOs are rightly mobilising, but also jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the most for earthquake survivors."

However, aid workers on the ground say that claim is unjust.

"I think every organisation wants to do its best to put in place the means that they need," says Florent Mayolle, a logistics manager with Oxfam International and who is working in the Dominican Republic.

Florent Mayolle is working for Oxfam International in Dominican Republic

"That is why, maybe, you can feel a little bit of competition. But now we are forgetting about that and trying to organise ourselves in a way that there is good co-ordination. That is the most important thing for us now."

Referring to the operation to bring in the British aid, as well as supplies from Denmark, Henrik Hansen of the World Food Programme agrees.

"In crises like this aid agencies do come together," he says. "In this particular case, Oxfam requested the World Food Programme provide warehouse capacity and overland transport to Haiti - and we provided those services."

While it was a complicated operation getting the aid organised and on a flight from Stansted to the Dominican Republic via Denmark, where it also picked up supplies, the hard part will be to ensure the aid gets to the people who need it most when it arrives in Haiti, where it was due to arrive on Sunday.

This is another area where the overall relief effort in Haiti has been criticised - with claims of poor distribution and confusion - with some areas even getting too much supplies and others too little.

But aid agencies point to the scale of the disaster in a country that was already lacking in infrastructure, and say the picture is slowly improving.

"People have to understand that we cannot send goods if we are not able to receive it in Port-au-Prince," says Florent Mayolle.

Difficult process

"So we need first to prepare the goods in a good manner, and to send it with security and to be able to receive the goods and afterwards to distribute it properly.

"Until now we had some problem of security, we didn't have the warehouse for storage. We will not be able to send it to lie on the ground without security - it is not possible."

DEC APPEAL The Disasters Emergency Committee is co-ordinating an appeal to help the people of Haiti There are 13 charities involved including the British Red Cross, Islamic Relief and World Vision Donate via the DEC website or by calling 0370 60 60 900 DEC radio appeal Haiti: How to help

With the warehouse and transport arranged - the small convoy of trucks carrying British aid was able to set off on Saturday afternoon.

Because convoys are only crossing the border twice a day due to security considerations, the drivers were waiting there overnight before completing their journey.

The aid included a wide range of material, from tools that will be useful in improving sanitation to latrine slabs and water tanks.

Oxfam says it is working in seven sites across the Haitian capital - trying to provide help to more than 90,000 people.

For all the main agencies the process of getting supplies to Haiti has been fraught with difficulties, and in the weeks and months to come lessons may well have to be learned from the experience of the last few days.

But among aid workers on the ground there also seems to be an endless amount of goodwill and determination - backed by the generosity of people in countries around the world.

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See where the aid began its journey, from Oxfam's warehouse in Oxfordshire, UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8473786.stm