Haiti PM begs for earthquake aid

Haiti's prime minister begged donors Monday to back the rebuilding of his quake-hit country and boost international aid as hundreds of thousands of people fought for survival in the rubble.

Nearly two weeks after the worst recorded disaster in the Americas killed at least 150,000 people, a conference of foreign creditors in Montreal heard that it would take at least 10 years to rebuild the stricken Caribbean nation.

As bulldozers cleared more corpse-filled buildings in the center of the flattened capital Port-au-Prince, Haitians expressed both hope and skepticism about the emergency meeting of donor countries in Montreal.

"The country is ravaged, I ask myself how it can be rebuilt after this catastrophe. The Haitian government is very corrupt," said Gesnel Faustin, 29, living in a tent outside the destroyed presidential palace.

"But if the United States, France and Canada get together for reconstruction, it will work."

In Montreal, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the top priority was to "satisfy the vital needs of victims like food and water, shelter and health care" but that longer-term needs were huge.

"I just want to say that the people of Haiti will need to be helped to face this colossal work of reconstruction," Bellerive told officials including his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Harper said rebuilding Haiti would take "at least 10 years of hard work" following the 7.0-magnitude quake which struck on January 12.

Oxfam and The World Council of Churches called for the cancellation of Haiti's 890 million dollars of foreign debt.

The United Nations said Monday that it has so far received pledges of more than 270 million dollars in emergency relief funding for Haiti, representing nearly half of its target.

In ravaged Port-au-Prince, Health Minister Alex Larsen said 90,000 bodies had already been counted and the final toll was expected to be around 150,000, with around one million homeless.

But the country's communications minister said 150,000 bodies had already been collected -- the differing figures underscoring the disorder gripping the Haitian government.

With the search for buried survivors officially over, one rescue team's hopes of success 13 days after the quake were dashed when signs of life picked up by radar turned out to be a false alarm caused by a worm-filled body.

Rescuers have saved 133 people from the debris, including a man who survived for 11 days on cola and snacks.

Looters continued to plague Haiti's wrecked commercial areas but in less-affected districts residents tried to return to some kind of normality Monday, with people going to work and shops reopening.

The UN said more than 235,000 Haitians have taken advantage of free buses to flee the filthy conditions in Port-au-Prince for more hygienic camps outside the capital.

Larsen said tents were being readied for 400,000 quake victims at mini-villages outside the capital that will initially hold 20,000 people, and in the long term accommodate around one million.

But the mass exodus is putting a huge burden on small towns like Saint Marc, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital, where 10,000 refugees were lodging with friends, strangers or in churches.

"My house was destroyed. We slept on the pavement near the wounded, we had to leave," said Magalie Esteverle, a 43-year-old dressmaker with three children staying with a distant cousin of her husband.

The situation has prompted European nations to agree to send some 300 police officers to help keep order and ease aid distribution.

The international aid effort came under fire from Italy's public safety chief, sent to Haiti last week, who criticized a lack of leadership in the response to the quake.

Guido Bertolaso, who led the response to the L'Aquila earthquake in April 2009, told Italian television it was "a terrible situation that could have been managed much better" and said the US force had "too many officers" to find a capable leader.

The United States has taken a frontline role in the disaster relief effort, sending in 20,000 troops and anchoring a hospital ship offshore, while the United Nations is also heavily involved.