14.01.2010 e-metro.ie I usually look like some homeless teenager Anna Kendrick P12-13 Island of the deadBy Miles Erwin A DESPERATE hunt for survivors was under way last night after a powerful earthquake in Haiti left up to 500,000 people dead. Rescuers clawed at the rubble as they battled to get to those trapped beneath thousands of collapsed buildings on the Caribbean island. Nothing was left untouched. Shanty towns, schools, hospitals, the parliament building and even the presidential palace had crumbled un- der the force of nature. Bodies of children were piled up next to schools. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, the re- mains of men and and women lay under covers in the street as the flies began to gather. Survivors lifted the sheets to see if they could identify their friends and relatives. But nobody was untouched by the carnage among those feared dead were the Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Joseph Serge Miot, and head of the UN peacekeeping mission Hdi Annabi. President Ren Prval said: Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them. All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe. The 7.0 magnitude quake, which struck at 4.53pm local time on Tuesday, is the biggest to strike the island for 200 years. It was centred less than 16km (10 miles) from Port-au-Prince, home to 3million people. The death toll was put at 50,000 by Mr Prval but the UN said the figure could go as high as 500,000. An international aid effort was launched yes- terday but many of the agencies in the country feared their staff had been killed. At least 11 Brazilian members of the UN peacekeeping mission were killed and 200 other UN workers were missing. The Red Cross warned it had already run out of medical supplies. Former senator Dr Louis- Gerard Gilles, said: The hospitals cannot han- dle all these victims. Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together. No-one is untouched as quake in Haiti kills up to 500,000 It was like a war zone P3 Death of an innocent: An injured father holds the body of his child after the quake Pictures: Reuters The mighty fall: The presidential palace in Port-au-Prince lies in ruins after the earthquake. It was built in 1918 after two other palaces on the same site were destroyed index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html