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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (44079)	11/9/2008 5:01:34 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 149317

OK... Here is what a lack of government regulation gest you. This is what you want? -------------------------------------- Toll rises to 93 in Haiti school collapse 1 hour ago PETION-VILLE, Haiti (AFP) — Rescuers found more victims Sunday beneath the rubble of a Haitian school that collapsed two days ago, driving the death toll to 93 as police questioned the school's pastor. Search teams recovered "87 bodies and 150 injured and also located six additional bodies in the rubble," with most of the victims children, Youth and Sports Minister Evans Lescouflair told AFP. Lescouflair said earlier that at least 150 had been injured by the crush of cement and steel. The previous death toll had stood at 84. Teams from the United Nations, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Haitian police and rescuers from France, the US and Canada have been scouring the rubble around the clock since the school collapsed on Friday morning but the chance of finding more survivors looked increasingly remote. So far four children have been found alive at the church-run school, La Promesse, in Petion-ville, on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince. Although 700 students aged between three and 20 attended the school, it operated in two sessions and no more than 350 would have been in the building at the time of collapse, the youth minister said. One teacher who had left the building minutes before it came crashing down told the minister that "a maximum of between 250 to 300 pupils were inside" at the moment of the tragedy, Lescouflair said. Based on those figures, it appears "there are not a lot of people still inside," he said. A camera was being used to peer into the pile of rubble and search teams were now clearing away roofing, said Lescouflair, adding: "but it is crumbly and the operation remains delicate." The pastor of the school was being questioned but authorities had not charged him with any crime. "Haitian authorities are looking into the matter," Justice Secretary Joseph-Luc Euchere said. He said the pastor, Augustin Fortain, was being questioned but "has not been formally charged with anything." "We are not going to act on emotion," he said. At the time of the collapse, builders had been adding a new floor to the school. Witnesses told AFP that the pastor had constructed the building himself without the help of engineers. Many frantic parents managed to return to the site to look for their children despite the deployment of Haitian police and UN troops to keep them out. On the ground floor, bloodstains, small shoes, workbooks and writing left unfinished on the blackboard testified to the panic as students and teachers fled as the school began to crumble. In one classroom, 6F, two bodies are visible among the mass of concrete and mangled reinforcing rods. UN engineers and soldiers from the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) worked to remove heavy pieces of concrete and to contain the large crowds of people. "We are going to pass to another phase, first extracting all the victims that can be seen and then removing blocks of cement so we can reach other parts of the building. Six bodies could be seen and one has been removed," said Captain Pepin Rosselly, head of operations of the Martinique rescue team. A deeply distressed Marie Flore said she had no news of any of her three children. At the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, medics worked to help the injured. Eight patients died during the night into Saturday, but there were success stories. "Two seven-year-old children -- a boy and a girl -- have been saved," Nadia Lochard, a spokeswoman from the civil protection bureau said early Saturday. "One of them underwent a successful operation," she said, without elaborating. Other officials pledged an investigation into the construction of the school and a survey of other education establishments that might be at possible risk. "This construction did not meet normal standards. We are going to ask the minister of education to make an inspection of all the schools built in the same way," senator Yvon Bissereth said.