Search goes on but hopes slim in Haiti collapse

[November 10, 2008]  PETIONVILLE, Haiti (AP) -- Rescuers vowed to go on with their search for survivors at a collapsed Haitian school at least through early Monday, despite shrinking hopes amid the growing stench of dead bodies trapped beneath the rubble.

U.S., French and Haitian firefighters used sonar, cameras and dogs to scour the wreckage of College La Promesse for signs of life three days after it collapsed during a school party, killing about 90 students and adults and severely injuring 150 more.

"We have not abandoned the search. We are continuing searching and we are taking a lot of precautions," civil protection coordinator Nadia Lochard told The Associated Press.

But no indications of survivors have come from the rubble since four children were pulled out Saturday morning, said Daniel Vigee, head of a Martinique-based French rescue team.

Rescuers are exploring every possible avenue, combing through spots where locals claimed to have heard voices or received cell phone calls from trapped survivors. None of those reports led to a rescue.

Rescuers prepared late Sunday to rip down a two-story high concrete slab of roofing that has been hanging precariously since the collapse, in hope of opening up new areas to search and recover bodies. Firefighters flown in from Fairfax County, Va., by the U.S. Agency for International Development had previously warned that removing the wall could be too dangerous to rescuers and any potential survivors.

It was unclear how many people were in the building when it collapsed, though the school is believed to have had about 500 students. Haitian officials said some people inside had time to escape when it began to fall, and it was not known how many were pulled out unharmed on Friday.

The collapsed school, located along a ravine in a slum below a relatively wealthy enclave near Port-au-Prince, has brought global attention to a country where chronic poverty and unrest spawn chaotic jigsaws of neighborhoods and building codes are widely ignored.

President Rene Preval, who has made several visits to the disaster site, blamed constant government turnover and a lack of respect for the law for the deadly collapse.

"There is a code already, but they don't follow it. What we need is political stability," Preval told The Associated Press.

A lawmaker estimated that more than a fifth of Haiti's 9 million people live in ramshackle slums that blanket mountainsides with squalid homes, shabby churches and poorly constructed schools like the one that tumbled down Friday.

Anger over what many Haitians consider a slow recovery effort boiled over Sunday as about 100 people rushed the wreckage and began trying to pull down the massive concrete slab. Thousands of onlookers cheered them before Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers drove them back with batons and riot shields.

The school's owner and builder, Protestant preacher Fortin Augustin, was arrested late Saturday on charges of involuntary manslaughter, police spokesman Garry Desrosier said.

Neighbors said they have long complained that the three-story school building was unsafe, and people living nearby have been trying to sell their homes since part of it collapsed eight years ago.

"You can see that some sections just have one iron (reinforcing) bar. That's not enough to hold it," said 55-year-old Notez Pierre-Louis, whose children used to attend the school. "I said all the time, one day this is going to fall on my house."

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has struggled this year to recover from riots over rising food prices and a string of hurricanes and tropical storms that killed nearly 800 people.

[Associated Press; By JONATHAN M. KATZ]

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