New quake triggers more panic in Haiti

A powerful new earthquake rumbled across the ruins of Haiti yesterday, sending thousands of already-traumatized survivors running through the streets, screaming in terror.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck at 6.03 a.m. (1103 GMT) yesterday, eight days after the Haitian capital was levelled by a massive temblor in which at least 75,000 people were killed, and a million left homeless.

"All Haitians are going to die because they are cursed," said one mother now camping amid the squalor of the Port-au-Prince rubble where countless bodies still lie buried.

There were no immediate reports of anyone being killed or wounded by the strong aftershock, but some already severely damaged buildings did come tumbling down. The lone surviving wall of the main cathedral, complete with a stained-glass window of Jesus, collapsed.

Despite the series of big aftershocks, rescuers have kept up their grim search through the rubble, elated by successes in finding survivors who have defied the odds. International rescue teams have so far rescued 121 people.

Hoteline Losana, 25, was found in the wreckage of a supermarket late on Tuesday only hours after Anna Zizi, who is about 70, sang as she was carried out of the ruins of Port-au-Prince cathedral. A three-week-old baby girl was dug out of rubble in the city of Jacmel.

Losana was said to be "conscious and in good form" by Thiery Cerdan of the French group Rescuers Without Borders, which carried out the nine-hour operation with Haitian firemen and American experts.

"We pulled someone out seven days after an earthquake, that is quite extraordinary," said Bruno Besson, another member of the French team.

French rescuers also found tiny 23-day-old Elisabeth on Tuesday in a hollow beneath the ruins of a house in southern Jacmel after spending five hours trying to get through to her.

"We handed her to her mother who put her to the breast. It was a real joy!" said Philippe Besson, head of the organization Emergency Firefighters' International.

The massive US relief operation, with some 12,000 US forces due to be deployed in or around the country, ramped up several gears on Tuesday when US troops fanned out across the ruined capital.

But international efforts are also focusing on rebuilding the country, with a major donor conference set for Monday in Montreal.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday called for a multilateral aid plan for Haiti on the scale of the US "Marshall Plan" that rebuilt Europe after World War II.

In a huge global effort, more than $1.2 billion has been pledged in aid funding for Haiti, according to UN data.

But Mr Strauss-Kahn said he believed Haiti "needs something that is big" as the impoverished Caribbean nation - one of the poorest countries in the world - looks to the future.

"Not only a piecemeal approach, but something which is much bigger to deal with the reconstruction of the country - some kind of a Marshall Plan that we need now to implement for Haiti," he said in a statement.