Aid slow to reach Haiti as shelter becomes priority for survivors of quake

A 4.4 magnitude earthquake shook Port-au-Prince this morning as rescue workers start to wind down their efforts to search for trapped survivors. Meanwhile, aid continues to trickle in to the makeshift tent cities housing hundreds of thousands of survivors. An estimated 200,000 Port-au-Prince residents have fled to other parts of Haiti, according to the US Agency for International Development.

FSRN spoke to Oxfam International's incoming country director for Haiti, Claude St-Pierre, yesterday evening in Port Au Prince. He said he had just visited several hospitals where Oxfam delivered bottled water and supplies. The organization is working at seven sites across the capital.

St-Pierre said shelter is a primary concern for the country's more than 1.5 million left homeless by the quake.

"So our approach to shelter so far in these immediate circumstances is to try to provide people with something to cover them. We had rain a few nights ago, we were very concerned that people did not have, for example, plastic sheeting, like simple means, a bit of a roof overhead. That goes as much for these people in these who have lost completely their houses as well as with the people who have not lost completely their houses but are feeling insecure with their houses and stay in the yard or, in some cases, in the streets in front of their houses."