By Mail Foreign Service
The death toll of the Haiti earthquake could reach up to 300,000, according to the country’s president.
Speaking after arriving in Mexico yesterday for international aid meetings, Rene Preval said the figure could soar once all the victims’ bodies are recovered from the wreckage.
'You have seen the pictures, you know the numbers, more than 200,000 bodies picked up in the streets, counting those that are still underneath the rubble, perhaps we could arrive at 300,000 deaths,' he said.
Black ribbons tied to a metal cross flutter in the wind on a hilltop above the mass grave site where many thousands of quake victims are buried.
Aid talks: Mexican President Felipe Calderon, right, greets Haiti's Rene Preval during the meeting of the Caribbean Community in Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Haiti's government has placed the death toll of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which caused devastation in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on January 12, at between 170,000 and 230,000.
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The latest estimate of casualty figures would mean the death toll is higher than that of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, in which 200,000 died.
Yesterday, Preval highlighted an urgent need for emergency shelter for the impoverished Caribbean nation, where 1.5 million people are living in squalid tent camps made of bedsheets and plastic scraps.
Destruction: Preval claims as many as 300,000 people could have been killed in the Haiti earthquake which destroyed the country's capital Port-au-Prince
The death toll of the Haiti earthquake could reach up to 300,000, according to the country’s president.
Shelter: Earthquake survivors are forced to live in squalid tent camps made of bedsheets and plastic scraps after the 7.0 magnitude quake destroyed homes
Fears of disease outbreaks have also been raised due to poor sanitation and with the beginning of the rainy season in March.
Arriving for the regional summit near the Mexican town of Playa del Carmen, Preval said: ‘The first rainy days in Port-au-Prince have made it impossible to enjoy a dignified life and this is the reason for the request for shelters.’
He called on Latin American countries to increase industry investments to help Haiti back on its feet, adding: 'I want to thank the Mexican people with all my heart’, for the aid the country has sent so far.
According to the International America Development bank, the reconstruction of Haiti could cost as much as £9billion.
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