PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Thousands of people slept in the streets and parks of Haiti's capital Wednesday night with little hope of aid a day after an earthquake flattened the city.
Volunteers went through the wreckage of Port-au-Prince listening for the cries of survivors, and private automobiles carried the injured and dead to makeshift medical stations and morgues, Haiti Press Network reported. Parks, squares and streets were crowded with the homeless.
Officials said the death toll from the 7.0 magnitude earthquake could be as high as 100,000 or several times that, CNN reported.
"Because we have so (many) people on the streets right now, we don't know exactly where they were living," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN. "But so many, so many buildings, so many neighborhoods totally destroyed, and some neighborhoods we don't even see people."
An international full-court press was initiated to rush aid to the impoverished Caribbean island nation. The United Nations announced it was airlifting 86 metric tons of food, enough for 500,000 emergency meals.
"We will work with the Haitian government, with our humanitarian partners on the ground, and with governments across the world as part of a coordinated international rescue and recovery effort," Josette Sheeran, head of the U.N. World Food Program, said in a statement.
The agency said the first priorities were finding survivors pinned under rubble, treating people with major injuries and providing clean water and sanitation.
Kristie van de Wetering, a former Oxfam charity employee based in Port-au-Prince, told CNN the situation was "very chaotic" with many buildings wiped out.
"We can hear people calling for help from every corner," she said.
"Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS," Louise Ivers, clinical director of Partners in Health, told colleagues in an e-mail. "Temporary field hospital by us ... needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us."
Tuesday's quake flattened the National Palace, numerous shantytown dwellings, hospitals and the U.N. mission, and crushed power and telephone lines in the city of 2 million, officials said.
The earthquake struck just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, centered about 10 miles southwest of the Haitian capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Many aftershocks followed and more were expected.
The earthquake's force was felt across the border in the Dominican Republic. Officials said high-rise buildings in Santo Domingo shook, the Times said.
It was unclear whether the Port-au-Prince airport could handle all of the aircraft needed to bring in relief aid, The New York Times said.
Robert Poff, director of disaster services for the Salvation Army in Haiti, told CNN he saw buildings "pancaking" down.
"Traffic, of course, came to a standstill, while thousands of people poured out into the streets, crying, carrying bloody bodies, looking for anyone who could help them," Poff said. "We piled as many bodies (as possible) into the back of our truck, and took them down the hill with us, hoping to find medical attention."
