Acehtsunami

The president of Haiti has claimed the death toll from last month’s devastating earthquake could reach 300,000, as salvage operations continue to pull bodies from the rubble. The Caribbean nation is still desperately attempting to deal with the aftermath of a 7.0-magnitude quake which struck on January 12th and left millions homeless and in urgent need of aid.

Speaking to a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the weekend, the Haiti president Rene Preval said: “You have seen the images you are familiar with the pictures. More than 200,000 bodies were collected on the streets without counting those that are still under the rubble.

“We might reach 300,000 people.” If the official death toll was to reach that level it would make the earthquake one of the worst natural disasters in modern history, significantly worse than the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 which left 200,000 dead.