Haiti mass graves receive unclaimed, unidentified bodies-Haiti earthquake in pictures: Shell-shocked survivors roam streets scavenging for scraps

Every five minutes, a vehicle pulled up to the gates of Port-au-Prince's cemetery, delivering another corpse to a mass grave dug by authorities trying to clear the broken city's streets of the dead.

"We have lost any dignity in death," said Mezen Dieu Justi, an old man barely able to contain his nausea and tears before the grim spectacle.

The massive earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday has produced a steady stream of bodies, with estimates of the death toll well into the tens of thousands.

Many families confronted with their final glimpse of a loved one simply lost control.

"It's my father, my dear father," screamed one young woman, who fainted at the sight of the mass grave filled with human bodies.

One woman, as though possessed, lowered herself into the grave saying she felt more comfortable among the dead. Bystanders eventually forced her back out again.

"We have lost our senses. Death has driven us insane," said one Haitian, whose relative's body had been transported to the grave for burial.

"For three days my sister was dead in her house. Finally we brought her here. We have lost hope of giving her a dignified burial, a coffin, the blessing of a priest," sobbed Florence, 40, a teacher.

Across Port-au-Prince, the dead litter the streets, stripped of human dignity, decomposing and covered in flies.

The efforts of recently-arrived foreign aid workers seem almost inconsequential by comparison with the scale of the devastation wrought by the quake.Related article:Obama speaks to Haitian president

Their work is both a race against time to save people who may still be alive under the rubble strewn across the city and also an effort to transport overwhelming numbers of corpses to the nearest mass grave.

Morgue officials said they no longer have the means to move the bodies, forcing aid workers to transport scores of unidentified and dust-covered cadavers.

Families waited patiently as rescue teams dug through the rubble, waiting to see if they could recognize a loved one.

"The truth is that we don't know what will be done with the dead," said Joseph Tihaly, a Haitian volunteer coordinating the delivery and identification of corpses abandoned at the general hospital's morgue.

The young student said numerous families had come seeking their relatives, but the majority of the bodies remained unclaimed and unidentified.

In one corner of the morgue, a Haitian man finished building a makeshift wooden coffin to hold his brother's body.

"I will try to take him to our village, to bury him there," he said.

At least two mass graves have been dug in the city to try to deal with the catastrophe. Haiti Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said he believed some 15,000 people had already been interred across the stricken capital.

But the sheer number of dead has simply overwhelmed all efforts, said Tihaly.

"Realistically, we don't know when these bodies will be taken, and we don't know by whom. It's chaos and a breeding ground for infection," he said.

The streets are littered with debris and filled with the stench of rotting corpses. From crumpled shops and flattened houses come the terrible cries of the injured and dying.

And as the sun rose on the third day since Port-au-Prince was razed to the ground, aid workers were faced with scenes of utter devastation.

Thousands of shell-shocked survivors roamed the streets scavenging for scraps among the debris. Others worked frantically to free the wounded from collapsed buildings.

Then there were the corpses, some still prostrate where they had died, others piled in heaps, waiting to be buried.

Amid the horror were stories of hope. Against all the odds, two children were pulled from devastated buildings, grimy, scratched and crying but very much alive.


 
 Split open: The walls of this building in Port-au-Prince have virtually disintegrated

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Resources: A man holds two bottle of fuel as people crowd around a gas pump waiting to get supplies

Click to enlarge

 
 Chaotic: People gather near makeshift shelters around the capital. Many have lost their families and homes in the worst natural catastrophe to hit Haiti for 200 years

 

 Gone in 60 seconds: Destroyed houses cascade down a hillside

 
Extraordinary stories: This three-month-old baby was dragged alive from rubble three days after the disaster struck

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Survivor: Redjeson Hausteen Claude, two, looks overjoyed to see his mother Daphnee Plaisin after being rescued

Corpse gathered on open space.No space to put corpse.Strong stench of rotting deaths fill the city.


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A Satellite image show the sporadic and widespread destruction hit main Haiti city.

 
 French and US rescuers carry a victim from the rubble of the Montana Hotel

 





  

French teams pull survivors from Haitian rubble

 

Scene from hell: Bodies laid out on the front-yard of the morgue in Port-au-Prince.A man helped by a morgue employee looks for a relative

 
Carnage: Residents walk through a destroyed area of Port-au-Prince scanning the debris for anything that has survived the earthquake

 

 Homeless and helpless: Residents have little to do but pace the streets of Port-au-Prince in a desperate search for food, water and shelter

 

 Fight for life: Rescuers attempt to free Haitian tax authority employee Elie Liest trapped in the service's collapsed building in Port-au-Prince

  

Reduced to rubble: An aerial view shows Port-au-Prince's ruined cathedral. The roof has all but collapsed and the ground below is littered with masonry

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