These poor people. What more can they take?
"Widespread destruction and urgent lack of medical supplies, nearly 1,300 people dead. This is the scene in Haiti this morning as the government there has declared a state of emergency after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country over the weekend," John Berman said on CNN's New Day.
"More than 5,000 people are injured but blocked roads and shortage of vital supplies are making it difficult for many victims to get the help they need. Our Matt Rivers is live in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti. Matt, obviously a country that's barely recovered from the last earthquake, just went through the assassination of its president, what's the situation on the ground?"
"Not to mention the devastating hurricane that came through just a few years ago, this is a country that truly cannot catch a break and unfortunately those numbers that you just mentioned off the top, they're almost assuredly going to go up as rescuers, government organizations, as charities make their way into the harder-hit areas here, a lot of those people who are missing are unfortunately going to be counted among the dead at some point, especially as time goes on. you mentioned nearly 1,300 dead," Rivers said.
"There are thousands of missing and injured. We actually got a chance to travel to one of the hardest-hit areas near the epicenter of this earthquake yesterday. We spent a couple of hours on the ground there, and you can see the damage. It is tremendous. Some of what happened there, you can see just the destructive power of this earthquake. We saw a luxury hotel that had collapsed, multiple stories high. There were still definitely, according to authorities, bodies inside that hotel.
"Rescue efforts being hampered by locals there who had actually gone into the site to take away certain things like air conditioners. We saw a dresser being walked out of there, mirrors somehow remained intact. It's a desperate situation out there and that is ahead of what we're expecting later on today, John, which is the arrival of what is a tropical storm system that is expected to bring winds that could gust up to 75 miles an hour, dump several inches of rain. That is going to make a complicated situation that much more complicated, John."
