Haiti, The Haitian government announced plans Thursday to build temporary tent cities around Port-au-Prince that could evolve into new communities.
Plan, tents would be used to house people in about a dozen places and private companies would be hired to replace the tents with small apartment buildings.
"We are hoping that this concentration of people will lead to work," Tourism Minister Patrick Delatour told the Times after a meeting with President Rene Preval. "They will help build their own housing."
More signs of economic life returning to the capital Thursday, CNN reported. Vendors were doing business at some street markets, money transfer offices opened, allowing Haitians to get money wired by relatives in the United States and tap taps -- small pickup trucks converted to passenger vehicles -- filled the streets.
Port reopened. Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said a U.S. landing craft would allow 150 containers of supplies to move through the port by the end of the day, Voice of America reported.
Port's capacity could grow to at least 250 containers a day Friday when a commercial vessel arrives.
Damage at the port and the airport, along with debris-clogged roads, has slowed the delivery of relief, the commander said.
Fraser said more than 1,400 flights are on a wait list to land at the capital's airport, the Pentagon said in a news release. Another airport in the Haitian city of Jacmel and two airports in the Dominican Republic have been opened to help get aid into Haiti but road travel remained difficult, the Pentagon said in a release.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders has reported waits of up to 12 days at some medical clinics, VOA reported. The delays, the non-government organization said, have lead to some patients' deaths.
U.Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes pointed up the difficulties of responding to such a vast catastrophe when he said the United Nations was doing all it could to ramp up relief efforts but still had a long way to go, the organization said in a release.
"We are straining every nerve again to make sure that there are the right number of doctors, the right amount of drugs and equipment and field hospitals," Holmes said, "We're hoping that we'll be able to turn a corner there very soon."
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