Taiwan-Mexico search team seeks miracle to beat the clock (Feature)

By Silvia Ayuso Jan 20, 2010, 20:28 GMT

Port-au-Prince - Not even the powerful quake that again shook Haiti on Wednesday could stop the relentless efforts of international rescue teams in the Caribbean country.

Against human logic and against all obstacles, they keep looking for - and rescuing - survivors more than a week after the quake that devastated Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti.

To date, 121 people have been rescued by international teams since the January 12 quake, and untold numbers have been salvaged by Haitian friends, families and strangers from the crushed rubble.

But the teams are intent on boosting that number.

A team of Taiwanese experts supported by colleagues from Mexico has worked for two days to try to get to the bottom of the rubble of a three-floor building that totally collapsed in the centre of Port- au-Prince.

Although dogs located at least one survivor there Tuesday, several hours into the effort, rescue workers had to temporarily abandon the task at dusk. It was too dangerous.

The area is one of the danger spots of the city centre. Even before night fell, a few shots could be heard. And the bullet shells on the floor showed that the threat was real. As if conditions were not tough enough, security issues are making all tasks even more difficult.

But rescue workers were back early the next day, even though an aftershock measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale shook the city just a while before.

Rescue workers avert their eyes from the side of the street, where a charred body lies. Nobody asks questions. Efforts focus on trying to bore a hole through the three floors of the collapsed building, where the dogs have located at least one person alive.

They say they hope to be able to rescue that person, but nobody can promise anything.

'It is very hot, they are dehydrated, without water, you don't usually stand it for more than three days,' says doctor Yan Wen Chang, part of the Taiwanese team. 'Finding anyone alive is a miracle. Time is very short.'

But miracles are happening time and again in Port-au-Prince. Several people were rescued Tuesday, including a 22-day-old baby girl. One woman was 'conscious and singing' as she came out of where she had been trapped for a week, in the complex around the devastated cathedral.

A Haitian woman who comes up to ask for help has run out of hope. In tears, she says that her two children lie dead below the rubble of what used to be her home, and she wants help to recover their bodies.

No one can assist her: they are still focusing on the living.

Such tragedies are rife in Haiti.

The team listens hard to one man who comes running to report the likely presence of survivors elsewhere.

'People hear knocks' in the rubble of a school, he says.

A rescue team immediately goes off with him. But they return empty-handed shortly afterwards. It was a false alarm, only an object that made noise as it bumped into the walls.

And yet there is no time for disappointment. There are too many places where rescue workers still refuse to give up their search, and too little the time they have left. Many teams are set to start packing their bags in the coming hours.

On this occasion, there is no happy ending. There are no signs of life, there is nothing to be done.