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Haiti quake death toll hits 150,000, fear of disease rises

Other News Materials 25 January 2010 02:48 (UTC +04:00)
The Haitian government has raised the official death toll for the January 12 earthquake to 150,000.
Haiti quake death toll hits 150,000, fear of disease rises

The Haitian government has raised the official death toll for the January 12 earthquake to 150,000.

In addtion, as many as three million have been injured or left homeless as a result of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, Press TV reported.

Health officials in Haiti have also expressed serious concerns about outbreaks of infectious diseases in the myriad tent cities due to the unsanitary conditions.

Doctors, as well as the injured and homeless, are pleading for medical aid, food, and water in nightmarish conditions in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

The crowded and unsanitary conditions in hundreds of improvised refugee camps could spread illnesses such as typhoid and measles, doctors said on Sunday. They also fear for the thousands of people who have endured operations, including amputations, and now need to avoid infection as they recover.

Despite the thousands of emergency surgeries already performed, patients are still coming to clinics with fractured bones and skin wounds that have not been treated in the aftermath of the quake.

Most of the treated no longer have homes where they can recover. Eleven hospitals were destroyed and thousands of homes have been partially or completely destroyed.

The government says the death toll could double to 300,000 as many more bodies remain uncounted under the rubble.

A mild earthquake measuring 4.7 in magnitude struck Haiti on Sunday, 20 miles (30 km) west of the capital Port-au-Prince, the US Geological Survey reported.

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