Eleven days after the 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, and with the death toll rising to 120,000, rescue teams pull 22-year-old man alive from the rubble
A man was dramatically rescued tonight after spending 11 days under the rubble of a hotel in Port-au-Prince, hours after the Haitian government declared search and rescue operations over.
The survival of 22-year-old Wismond Exantus Jean-Pierre was hailed as "more than a miracle" by international emergency teams who had been at the point of leaving Port-au-Prince.
"I was hungry," Jean-Pierre said from his hospital bed. "But every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive." He survived initially by diving under a desk when the rubble started to fall. Trapped in such a small space, he had lie on his back and survived by drinking cola, beer and cookies.
"I would eat anything I found," he said. "After the quake I didn't know when it was day and when it was night."
Rescue workers were called back from the airport to help after Jean-Pierre's brother, Jean Elie, heard tapping from the ruins of the Hotel Napoli Inn where he had been searching daily for him, after dreaming that he was alive. "Today is the first time we communicated with him," Jean Elie said. "He asked for us to save him. God has been keeping him alive." Jean-Pierre turned to his brother by his bedside and told him: "When you are in a hole, I will try to reach out to you, too."
Rescuers said Jean-Pierre, who had been working as a cashier at a grocery store on the ground floor of the hotel when the earthquake struck, was fine but thirsty.
Karl Jean-Jeune, a 23-year-old local working for Greek television, spread word of the dramatic events using Twitter. Apostolos Dedas of the Greek rescue team was one of those summoned to the scene. During the rescue operation he said: "I'm asking Jean-Pierre if he is OK and he taps. It's a miracle."
Two members of French and Greek search and rescue teams crawled into the tangled mass of concrete rubble, wooden beams and corrugated iron that was all that was left of the hotel to reach Jean-Pierre. They sawed away material to help the trapped man out.
Carmen Michalska, a rescuer with the Greek team, said: "He was holding the light to help us saw. He just said 'Thank you' when we pulled him out." Michalska said the team would continue the search because it had "an indication" that more people were trapped.
Jean Elie said he was disappointed at the government's decision to disband rescue operations, which was taken a day after a young man and an elderly woman were pulled out alive after 10 days buried in debris. "Hope is vanishing now, though we could still have miracles," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs. The announcement came as the official death toll from the 12 January quake climbed to at least 120,000.
A crowd gathered in front of the ruins of Notre Dame de l'Assomption cathedral today for the funeral of the Roman Catholic archbishop, Joseph Serge Miot, who died in the 7.0-magnitude quake. His body will be transferred to a new cathedral when it is built, said church officials.
Some rescue teams had packed up and left even before the official end of rescue operations. British teams with sniffer dogs were expected to arrive back at Gatwick airport tonight after pulling three survivors from rubble, including a toddler called Mia.
"We should all be proud of the brave British firefighters, who worked tirelessly to help the Haitians, in difficult and dangerous conditions," said Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary. "I would like to thank them on behalf of the UK government."
Speaking from Geneva, Byrs said the Haitian government's announcement did not mean that all rescue teams would immediately cease working. "In cases where there is the slightest sign of life, they will act," she explained.
Some critics have complained that rescue efforts diverted resources that could have saved more lives if they had been used to treat Haiti's estimated 250,000 injured. But Fernando Alvarez Bravo, a representative for rescue crews, said such efforts gave the rest of the population the assurance they had not been abandoned. About 130 people were pulled alive from collapsed buildings by international teams, including two on Friday. An 84-year-old woman, dehydrated, injured and almost skeletal, was found in her home.
Emmanuel Boso, 21, emerged in better shape after an Israeli team extracted him from the ruins of his home. Speaking from a hospital bed, he described stepping out from the shower when the earthquake hit.
"I felt the house dancing around me," he told AP. "I didn't know if I was up or down." The student said he passed out in the rubble and dreamed that he could hear his mother crying. He had no food and drank his own urine. "I am here today because God wants it."
Aftershocks have continued to jolt the city, keeping most people outdoors at night. The US Geological Survey said there was a 3% chance of another 7.0-magnitude earthquake and a 25% chance of a 6.0.
