When some rescue teams were giving up on the task of rescuing more people alive from the rubble and planning to return to their countries, a magnitude 6.1 aftershock, the strongest since the 7.0 magnitude original quake, struck Haiti Wednesday morning. In a country where most of the buildings are now badly damaged and on the verge of collapsing, it was something else to add to the sense of insecurity and fear of the population, many of them dying and all of them suffering. Perhaps, it is not yet time to let the bulldozers level the buildings. The problem is that eight days after it all began a great chaos reigns in the capital. From the beginning, coordination among the countries that promptly arrived to help and or sent help has been lacking. From the disagreement between nations, such as Brazil and France and the US about landing decisions at the airport, the Brazilians and French wanting to clarify who was in charge in the airport after some of their planes with rescue teams and medical help were not allowed to land and had to do it in the Dominican Republic, to the Americans saying they had been asked by the Haitian government to take charge. Finally, the UN was designated to coordinate the help with the Haitian government’s approval. The result being that nobody is sure who is in charge, and a lack of basic necessities such as water, food and medicines is still prevalent in many parts of the country.
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