As bodies line streets, fight for life just beginning in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - As darkness fell on Haiti's capital last night, crowds gathered in the streets to spend the evening in the relative safety of the outdoors.

Their lives turned upside down by Tuesday's devastating earthquake, many survivors broke out into communal song, seeking to soothe themselves in a city with no power, little water, a limited number of inhabitable buildings and scores of bodies strewn along the roadways.

But then, about 6:30 p.m., the songs turned to screams as a strong aftershock hit. Moments later, the crowds in the street grew larger, as many of those who had remained inside ran from their shaky shelters.

Across Port-au-Prince yesterday, the damage seemed nearly random. Some hillsides of homes looked as if they had simply crumbled. Other buildings appeared untouched.

But along the city's roadsides, the true cost of the earthquake was visible: the bodies of victims neatly lined up, some covered in sheets, some not.

The corpses included that of a girl, perhaps a teenager, in pink shorts; a couple lying next to one another; a man covered in a sheet.

On Martin Luther King Avenue, just past a sign that said "Welcome to Port-au-Prince," the slender legs of three young children poked out from under sheets. Three adults were next to them.

There was virtually no sign of outside assistance other than a few UN vehicles passing by - and no police presence, no water being handed out, no encampments except those set up by people apparently left homeless or those too afraid to go back into their ramshackle homes.

Tent and tarp cities had quickly sprung up. Virtually no shops were open.

Outside the Hospital Canapé-Vert, a crowd surged toward the entrance. A few bodies covered in sheets lay nearby on the road.

At the Hospital St. Esprit, bodies also lay outside. Inside the hospital compound, people lay dying. Many of the injured had hideous wounds.

A harried worker inside the guarded compound said there was no means to treat severely injured people.

The grounds of the once-lavish Hotel Villa Creole had been turned into a makeshift outdoor hospital. Children cried, and others were too weak or injured to make a sound.