Fight for life as Haiti survivors beg for aid

PORT-AU-PRINCE

Rescuers pulled traumatised survivors out of the ruins of their shattered homes as Haitians begged Monday for food, water and medicine six days after a quake flattened much of their nation.

Thousands more US troops were poised to join the beleaguered relief effort which has struggled to get to hundreds of thousands of the homeless, injured and despairing.

Scuffles and looting have broken out as survivors fight for whatever they can find, while all around the stench of burning bodies clings to the air as tens of thousands of rotting corpses are hurriedly disposed of.

Officials fear the eventual death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude quake could reach 200,000, and by Sunday 70,000 had already been buried in mass graves.

International aid is beginning to trickle in but life-saving supplies are desperately thin on the ground as relief workers grasp the sheer scale of the crisis, which has made several hundred thousand people homeless.

US President Barack Obama has mobilised military reserves and UN chief Ban Ki-moon promised after visiting the disaster zone Sunday to speed up the aid effort.

"I am here to say we are with you. You are not alone," Ban said after flying over the ruined capital Port-au-Prince in a helicopter.

"Time is still of the essence. We're getting better, but there is still a lot of misery in Haiti," said US Rear Admiral Ted Branch, who commands the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson strike group.

But amidst the death and desperation were life-affirming tales of survival against all the odds.

A text message to the United Nations set in motion a relief operation that led to the rescue two days later of Maria, Ariel and Lamy after being buried for more than 100 hours under a collapsed supermarket.

"I'm seven," Ariel shouted to rescuers seeking signs of life, adding that she was stuck next to a dead man but covered with supermarket food.

"It was electric when we saw the fruit of our labor, when that little girl came out," said Joseph Fernandez, of a Florida search and rescue team.

Another text message led to the ruins of the upmarket Montana hotel whose German co-owner was pulled out four days after the quake.

Two Australian news crews dug by hand to rescue an 18-month-old baby lying alongside her dead parents.