PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti’s government has ended the search and rescue phase of the quake relief effort after two people who spent 10 days buried under rubble were pulled out alive and the death toll soared to more than 110,000. The United Nations said 132 people had been saved from debris but that “the government has declared the search and rescue phase over. “There were 132 live rescues by international search and rescue teams,” the UN’s Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added in its latest situation report on the relief effort. An 84-year-old woman and 22-year-old man defied the odds by being rescued from the rubble in Port-au-Prince yesterday. But over 10 days since the 7.0-magnitude quake the UN said the Haitian government declared the rescue effort over at 2100 GMT yesterday. Up to 67 search and rescue teams with 1,918 staff and 160 dogs had combed the ruins of Port-au-Prince and towns and villages in south Haiti in the search for signs or life under collapsed homes and buildings. Aid workers said the number of people pulled out were a record for such a disaster. Haiti’s interior ministry said yesterday the confirmed death toll from the quake now stood at 111,499. It said more than 193,000 people were injured and more than 609,000 were living in temporary camps. The US Geological Survey said the Haiti disaster has already gone down in history as the most destructive on record in this region.

High aftershock risk

WASHINGTON: Earthquake-hit Haiti faces a high risk of possibly damaging aftershocks for at least 30 days and is set to suffer further tremors for months or even years to come, the US Geological Survey said on Friday. Port-au-Prince was hit by two fresh aftershocks on Friday, 10 days after the 7.0-magnitude quake struck the country. “The aftershock sequence of the magnitude-7 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12, 2010, will continue for months, if not years,” the USGS warned in a bulletin on its website. “The frequency of events will diminish with time, but damaging earthquakes will remain a threat.”