The Bulgarian Government is prepared to provide additional humanitarian aid to Haiti, it emerged after Prime Minister Boiko Borissov held talks with Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov, Bulgarian National Television said.
 
Deputy Foreign Minister Konstantin Dimitrov is to participate in a meeting in Brussels on January 18 2010 of European ministers on the crisis in Haiti. Following the meeting, the Bulgarian Government will decide on providing additional assistance.
 
On January 15 2010, Borissov ordered Bulgaria’s Defence Ministry to send more than a ton of supplies including tents, blankets and other equipment.
 
On January 17, the Voice of America reported that efforts to aid survivors of Haiti's earthquake were becoming increasingly tense, as survivors fought to get help and foreign governments and relief groups were striving to provide it.
 
Diplomatic squabbles broke out on January 16 as France accused the United States of exerting too much control over which flights are allowed to land at the airport in Port-au-Prince.
 
International aid workers were still struggling on January 17 to deliver desperately needed water, food and medical supplies to Haitians four days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake.
 
News agency Reuters said that four days after a massive quake killed up to 200 000 people, international rescue teams were still finding people alive under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince.
 
Hundreds of thousands of hungry Haitians were desperately waiting for help, but logistical logjams kept major relief from reaching most victims, many of them sheltering in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies, Reuters said.
 
The UN News Service quoted Edmond Mulet, former Special Representative to Haiti and current Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, who was dispatched to the nation to assume full command of the UN Stabilisation Mission (MINUSTAH) in the wake of the disaster, as saying that the earthquake, which is believed to have affected one third of Haiti's nine-million population, was a "great tragedy".
 
On arriving in Port-au-Prince on January 13, he held talks with president René Préval and other top officials, in which he emphasised that MINUSTAH was in the process of building back its capacity and emphasised the Mission’s full support of the government as it rebuilds the devastated capital.
 
He has also flown over the capital, Port-au-Prince, the city most devastated by the tremors, with Préval, during which they saw first-hand the destruction wrought by the disaster.
 
UN emergency teams on the ground estimate that as many of half of the buildings in the worst-hit areas of the capital have been damaged or destroyed.
 
"We are still in the search-and-rescue phase, and we are trying to save as many lives as possible," UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon told reporters, as UN agencies continued to rush assistant to Haiti.
 
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) aims to reach up to two million people with one-week rations of ready-to-eat food, while also planning for food-for-work schemes to jump-start reconstruction and rehabilitation.
 
The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) is distributing water purification tablets, rehydration salts and other supplies in a bid to prevent the spread of diarrheal infections and diseases.
 
Two aircraft loaded with 70 metric tons of tents, tarpaulin, and medicine were scheduled to land in Haiti this weekend.
 
A major humanitarian operation is under way, Ban said, and "although it is inevitably slower and more difficult than any of us would wish, we are mobilising all resources as fast as we possibly can."
 
With the airport's capacity limited, roads still blocked and the lack of transport and fuel within Haiti, the logistical situation, Ban said, was a very difficult one.
 
"That said, the international community's response has been generous and robust, and we are gearing up rapidly and effectively despite the challenging circumstances," he said, a sentiment echoed by Mulet.
 
Ban spoke by phone with Préval and assured him the UN was fully mobilised to bring aid.
 
Ban said United States co-ordination with the UN was also very important.
 
The UN has launched a flash appeal for some $562 million, with most of these funds to be directed to urgent needs, including food, water and shelter.
 
The European Commission said on January 16 that European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel De Gucht would travel to Port-au-Prince early in the week starting January 18 to see first-hand the situation of the people of Haiti.
 
De Gucht will travel to Haiti following his participation in the emergency EU Development Ministers meeting to be chaired by Vice-President/High Representative Catherine Ashton on January 18. The meeting will discuss immediate emergency relief measures and the EU's contribution to post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction.
 
De Gucht’s visit will be an opportunity to assess the immediate life-saving humanitarian aid needs as well as the medium and long-term requirements for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country, the European Commission said.
 
He will also meet with the Haitian authorities and the UN and main aid representatives on the spot to discuss the coordination of the overall relief co-ordination effort, "which the EU aims to consolidate and strengthen" according to the European Commission.
 
Ashton was continuing to co-ordinate the EU's contributions and activities with the EU member states and international partners, Brussels said.
 
She was in close contact with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban ahead of their respective visits to the disaster region.
 
Ashton will travel to the United States in the week starting January 18 for meetings with the US administration and at UN headquarters in New York.