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UN / HAITI BAN KI-MOON
STORY: UN / HAITI BAN-KI MOON
TRT: 1:27
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 14 JANUARY 2009 NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN headquarters
14 JANUARY 2009, NEW YORK CITY
2. Med shot, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon walking to microphone
3. SOUNDBITE (English) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
“The overall picture remains still sketchy and the facts, as far as we know, are grim.”
4. Cutaway, cameraman
5. SOUNDBITE (English) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
“The picture looks very much as it did yesterday. Approximately 150 UN staff remain unaccounted for. Roughly 100 of them were likely in the UN headquarters building, the Christopher Hotel, when it collapsed. I have seen the image of this UN headquarters… it’s terrible… half of the Christopher Hotel totally collapsed.”
6. Cutaway, reporter taking notes
7. SOUNDBITE (English) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
“According to our experience in past disasters like this, we have seen many survivors who have been found many days later. This is our hope so 72 hours will be crucially important to save all those survivors.”
8. Med shot, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon walks away from microphone
Almost two days after the earthquake in Haiti, the overall picture still remains sketchy and the facts regarding deaths are grim said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Ban, who spoke to the press earlier today (14 Jan) at UN headquarters, added that it might take days before the UN has a better idea of the overall death toll in the country. He feared that it would be very high.
According to the UN, a third of Haiti’s population of nine million has been severely affected by the earthquake. The UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has so far reported 22 deaths among peacekeepers – 18 military personal and four police. There are still approximately 150 civilians staff unaccounted for, said Ban.
He added that about 100 of them were likely in the UN headquarters at Christopher Hotel which had collapsed.
The remaining 3,000 peacekeepers are helping to maintain security and public order in Port-au-Prince, where devastations have been the most severe.
On the humanitarian front, supplies have begun to arrive by airlift. So far, three French cargo planes and a flight from Venezuela arrived carrying these supplies. Rescue teams from France, China, the US and many other countries are already on the ground.
Ban said search and rescue teams have been arriving since yesterday afternoon and expressed hope that more survivors will be found within the next day or so. 72 hours since the disaster will be “crucially important to save all those survivors,” he said.
Search and rescue teams are currently working, using dogs and electronic sensing equipment to find survivors. Early this morning, an Estonian close protection officer at the UN was rescued out of the rubbles and transported to a hospital run by the Argentinean peacekeeping contingent.
Ban, who spoke to US Ambassador Susan Rice earlier today, asked the US Government to provide helicopters, engineers and medical supplies to help the aid operations.
Edmond Mulet, who has temporarily replaced Hedi Annabi, the UN Special Representative for Haiti, is expected to arrive in Haiti this afternoon to meet up with Haitian President Rene Preval to coordinate recovery efforts.
Annabi is one of the 100 UN staff who was last seen at Christopher Hotel when the earthquake struck. He was meeting with a delegation from China on the top floor of the office building.
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