In quake-hit Haiti, rumors spread like wildfire and appeals for help are quickly relayed in the hopes of new miracles, but such dramatic rescues are also keeping nerves here tightly on edge.
In a chaotic city, badly damaged in the January 12 quake, it is the Haitian people who for more than two weeks have been the most ardent, persistent rescuers of all.
Thousands work every day under the fierce Caribbean sun, clawing at the rubble with bare hands or using simple sledge-hammers and saws, hoping against hope to find someone still alive or recover what meagre belongings they can.
Friends, family or perfect strangers — it doesn't matter, any spark of hope brings a moment of elation amid the desolation of their surroundings.
On Wednesday, excited crowds quickly gathered to witness the rescue of 16-year-old Darlene Etienne who had been trapped under the rubble for 15 days.
"She is 16 years old, she is alive and she has her whole life ahead of her. She was speaking, she said that she was happy," said an elated Colonel Michel Orcel.
He was the French doctor at the field hospital where the severely dehydrated and weakened teen was initially treated after her stunning rescue.
"Perhaps it's something new with this earthquake, this way of relaying information," French civil defense service spokesman Commander Samuel Bernes told AFP.
Like teams who rushed to Haiti's help in the wake of the tremor, French rescuers in Port-au-Prince have called off search operations, as the government moves to help hundreds of thousands left hungry and homeless.
But the French teams have left their phone numbers with many locals in the hopes of getting news quickly of any possible survivors still trapped and crushed beneath piles of concrete.
All it takes is a text message, and workers rush to launch a search. Most end in failure, and with each passing day hope fades of finding survivors.
Sometimes though, the frantic efforts pay off, with every minute, every hour that passes more critical than the next.
US troops rescued a 31-year-old man on Tuesday said to have been buried for 12 days after being trapped in a building that collapsed in an aftershock two days after the initial quake.
"He did not have enough strength… to scream any more, but when he heard the Haitians going through the rubble, he was able to make a cry that would be recognized that he was still alive," the Haitian-American doctor who treated him told CNN, which named the survivor as Ricot Duprevil.
On Saturday, search teams pulled a 25-year-old man out alive after 11 days under the rubble. He had been trapped in a shop and was able to grab a some food and drink to keep himself alive.
Just hours before Darlene's rescue, there was talk of a group of survivors in the ruins of the Port-au-Prince university.
But tragically all the rescue teams found were five decomposed bodies.
Sometimes, in desperation overcome by the smell of decomposing bodies, neighbors report signs of life under the rubble hoping the rescue teams will remove the corpses, now posing a health hazard.
More than two weeks after the temblor, hopes of finding more people alive are dimming. But if there is a credible alert, the rescuers say they will still come. "Whatever the information is, we have to go," said Bernes.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
