Haitians Flee Ruined Capital for Shelter in Countryside

Haitians Flee Ruined Capital for Shelter in Countryside - Kevin Noblet and Dionne Searcey, Wall Street Journal.

Haitians by the thousands jammed into rickety wooden buses and open trucks to escape the capital on Saturday, days after a killer earthquake leveled much of the city and turned it into an epicenter of despair. Armed with little more than hope and the clothes on their back, they headed for the countryside, hoping to leave behind the persistent tremors and the corpse-littered wreckage of the capital. In the scramble to flee, Lucien St. Cyr and his little boy Jean Edy lucked out. Both jammed into a red open pickup with about 40 others who screamed and shoved in a battle over the available space. The passengers were hoping to make it to Jacmel, on the southern coast of Haiti some 50 miles away. The road was ruined, they were told, so the bus would take them about half-way. They then would have to walk over a broken section of road to catch another bus. Mr. St. Cyr hoped to find shelter with a friend there. "We don't know what to expect there, but we have nothing here. We have to leave," he said. Their house fell in the quake, destroying all their possessions. Roberthe Pierre and his huge tribe of relatives, meanwhile, were left in the rank dust. Mr. Pierre sadly watched that group depart. Tall and thin, he stood among 11 relatives, while another 12 sat on the ground nearby. Hundreds of others milled around the intersection, one of many in the capital where buses and pick-ups were being boarded.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405..._LEFTTopStories