PORT-AU-PRINCE (AlertNet) Â? Landing craft laden with food are helping to bring supplies into quake-hit Haiti, bypassing the capital's clogged airport and speeding up the delivery of aid to an increasingly desperate population.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has contracted two landing craft from Miami, which arrived in Haiti on Thursday, the organisation said. The vessels, carrying thousands of tonnes of aid packed onto four-wheel drive vehicles, can land on Haiti's beaches, also allowing them to access remote communities.
The Jan. 12 earthquake, which killed up to 200,000 people, knocked out the country's main port in the Haitian capital and ripped up roads, hampering the delivery of aid. Port-au-Prince's small single runway airport has struggled to cope with the plane loads of aid that have landed since the disaster.
Â?The ability to land food directly onto the shore will greatly help us,Â? said WFP spokesman Marcus Prior in Port-au-Prince.
The use of landing craft, a technique employed only twice before by the WFP, shows just how difficult it is to deliver aid around Haiti more than two weeks after the 7.0 earthquake. The WFP used similar vessels to respond to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2009 Myanmar cyclone.
The craft, with a shallow drop allowing them to sail right up to the shore, drop ramps onto beaches and the four-wheel drive vehicles then roll off. The two vessels are carrying 1,500 metric tonnes and 2,200 metric tonnes of supplies respectively.
The first craft arrived in Cap Haitien on Haiti's northern coast on Thursday, where it was offloading food for Port-au-Prince. A second is heading for the capital, loaded with ready-to-eat meals and cargo handling equipment, the WFP said.
"This is much cheaper and we are able to deliver much larger quantities of supplies than using helicopters," said Caroline Hurford, WFP spokeswoman in London. "They can reach distant and remote communities we might not have been able otherwise to reach," she added.
Tens of thousands of Haitians have fled Port-au-Prince, much of which was destroyed in the earthquake, for Haiti's provinces but this is putting a strain on other towns and villages. It is estimated that 3 million people were injured or left homeless by the massive quake.
Prior said the Haiti disaster was one of the most complex that the WFP had responded to in its history.
Despite the plane loads of aid that have descended on Haiti, aid groups have struggled to distribute the supplies and many Haitians remain hungry.
"WeÂ?ve reached about 450,000 people with about 10 million meals,Â? Prior said on Tuesday. Â?We find ourselves frustrated that we havenÂ?t reached more people.Â?
Most food distribution points are calm but some have turned ugly, with U.N. troops using tear gas and firing warning shots to control jostling crowds.
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