Miracle as girl, two, is found alive under Haiti earthquake rubble by Manchester rescue team

By DANIEL BOFFEY and MARTIN DELGADO

Safe: Mia is handed back to her mother by the British firefighters who hauled her out of the debris in Haiti


A team of British firefighters told of their desperate five-hour struggle to pull a two-year-old girl from the rubble of a nursery destroyed by the Haiti earthquake.

The hysterical toddler, called Mia, had been trapped under the ruins of the building for three days alongside the bodies of her dead friends before her breathing was picked up by her rescuers' sonar equipment.

Working in sweltering heat, the firemen, from Manchester and Wales, then dug with their hands, shovels and picks to reach her.

The gap through which they pulled Mia was so small that they had to carefully cut away her pigtails - which were held by pink hairbands - to prise her out from under the ruins.

Dehydrated but suffering from nothing more than cuts and bruises, the little girl was then reunited with her mother, who had been watching helplessly.

The British firefighters who rescued Mia were in a 64-strong team from eight brigades sent to Haiti as part of the UK aid effort.

Simon Cording, 35, the rescuer who pulled Mia from the rubble, said: ‘Mia was just one of the lucky ones. The devastation here is so vast. Back home we complain about a bit of snow but that is nothing in comparison to what these people are going through.’

An unknown number of children playing in the nursery were crushed by the roof and walls of the building when the earthquake struck on Tuesday.


Despair: A girl takes refuge under a tent with her family after their house was turned to rubble


But without any local emergency rescue teams in Deprez, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, it took the appearance of the British International Search and Rescue Team in the area for the search for survivors to begin.

The 12 rescuers and three medics were alerted to the nursery tragedy on Friday morning as they were searching other collapsed buildings for survivors.

They used sonar equipment to listen out for signs of life as they moved uneasily around the unstable remains of the building.

Mike Thomas, chief officer of the British rescuers working in Haiti, said: ‘The guys on the ground heard some movement on their systems and started to pick away with their hands, shovels and picks to get through the rubble and concrete.

‘It took five hours and it would have been a lot easier with our heavy-lifting equipment, but it had not arrived. So they did what they had to do, what they are trained for.

‘Unfortunately we only found one child who had made it. Four other bodies were discovered. The children were aged between two and nine.

‘Mia was very upset when she was found and didn’t want any liquids. But our medical team saw to her, checked her over thoroughly and she was reunited with her mother.’


Chaos: Looters fight for products in a business area of Port-au-Prince
The British team was also involved in rescuing a Haitian man who had been trapped for three days in the rubble of a supermarket in Deprez.


The five-storey supermarket had collapsed, burying dozens of shoppers. Rescuers hope that others trapped in the remains of the Caribe Market, one of the city’s biggest stores, might be able to reach food and water near them.

In Britain, donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee Earthquake Appeal raised £10million in 24 hours, bringing the total since Tuesday to £12million.

Among those unaccounted for following the collapse of the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince was a British woman, Ann Barnes, 59, originally from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, who had worked for the organisation for 20 years and was serving as personal assistant to the UN police commissioner.


Disaster relief: Desperate Haitians receive water from US air crewmen


Global effort: Israeli rescuers carry an injured man from the rubble of a tax authority building in Port-au-Prince


Her cousin, Christine Hart, of Hornchurch, Essex, said the family were ‘clutching at straws’ as they waited for news.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘Ms Barnes is still missing. We are in contact with her family.’ The spokesman said the British Embassy in Haiti was aware of 30 Britons being in the country when the quake struck and efforts were being made to contact them.

Meanwhile, the earthquake is estimated to have killed up to 200,000 people, making it the worst disaster the UN has ever had to deal with. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the government had already recovered 20,000 bodies.

Gangs of armed men roamed the devastated city, threatening residents as they sought shelter from the baking heat in makeshift camps hastily erected among the debris and decomposing bodies.

Looting turned violent when a mob of 1,000 people fought for goods in a street filled with destroyed shops and houses. Men with stones, knives, ice picks and hammers battled each other. Police were nowhere to be seen.


Disorder: A looter holds a knife to another man as they fight over stolen goods in the capital


A water delivery truck driver said he was attacked in a slum district and a photographer with the AP news agency saw a looter haul a corpse from a coffin at a cemetery and then drive away with the box.

The US military is now in charge of the damaged airport and said it could handle 90 flights a day, but that was not enough to cope with all the planes sent by foreign governments and aid agencies.

In another district of Port-au-Prince, a team of Brazilian rescue workers struggled to free several people trapped in the rubble of a nursing college.

The manager there received a text from inside saying that 25 people were stuck under the building but as night fell the Brazilians had to withdraw because they had no lights.

Trucks piled with corpses headed for mass graves outside Port-au-Prince but thousands more bodies were believed to be still buried under the rubble.

If the casualty figures are verified, the 7.0-magnitude quake that hit the Caribbean nation on Tuesday would be one of the ten deadliest ever.

Yesterday morning a 4.5-magnitude aftershock struck near Port-au-Prince, forcing people to flee already weakened buildings and rescuers to temporarily halt searches for survivors.

In an emotional message to the outside world, Haitian President Rene Preval thanked the international community for its help.


Support: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens to the concerns ofHaiti President Rene Preval


Speaking outside the police station that has become his home and office, the 66-year-old president said he had not slept for two days after the quake hit.

With so many government buildings destroyed, Preval met with ministers in the open air in a circle of plastic chairs.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew into Port-au-Prince last night to assess earthquake damage and to help deliver relief supplies.

President Barack Obama said the US was moving towards one of the largest relief efforts in its history.

He said he aims to have 10,000 troops on the ground and in ships offshore by tomorrow.


British man cowered in basement as building fell

A British man told last night how he narrowly escaped death when the earthquake reduced the compound where he was working to rubble, killing more than 140 of his colleagues.

Arnaud Royer, 35, an official for the United Nations, was at a meeting in a basement office of the UN complex on a hill overlooking Port-au-Prince.

When he scrambled through fallen masonry after the shock waves subsided, he discovered the body of a woman who, minutes earlier, had been sitting across the table from him.


Devastation: The United Nations headquarters lies in a heap


In what he calls a ‘miraculous’ stroke of fate, however, his wife, Anabelle, 29, had left her office in the Haitian capital earlier that afternoon, and was at home with their daughters, Manon, one, and Margot, five.

The block of flats where they lived was the only building left standing in the area. ‘We can’t tell you how we feel. We don’t feel. We are walking zombies. We are just numb,’ said Arnaud, from Nottingham.

‘It was about 4.30pm when it happened. There were cracking noises and vibrations. I thought a helicopter was overhead, but then the room went dark and the walls started shaking.


source: dailymail