VOA常速英语:Haitian Hospitals Struggle with Flood of Injured

Hospitals in Haiti are struggling to cope with the flood of people injured in Tuesday's earthquake, as bodies pile up in severely damaged areas. International aid is streaming into the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, in response to the crisis.

Injured people continue to arrive at hospitals in Port-au-Prince, where medical teams are working to care for the large numbers affected by Tuesday's massive earthquake.

Several young men were carrying an injured young woman as they rushed into a hospital near the international airport, late Wednesday.  Several patients with bandaged arms and hands sat in the grass in front of the hospital.  Across the yard, several dozen bodies were laid out, covered in sheets or placed in the back of pick-up trucks.

A small group of people gathered in front of the hospital, including some awaiting information on injured relatives and others drawn to one of the few buildings with electricity.

Huge swaths of the capital remained in darkness as a result of widespread power failures. The majority of buildings in one neighborhood appeared to be intact, but other structures were totally destroyed. A line of bodies filled the sidewalk in front of a large police station that was leveled in the quake.

At the airport, a stream of cargo planes arrived, carrying international rescue teams and supplies from the United States, Brazil, Iceland and other countries. An American military plane unloaded a team of Air Force soldiers from Florida, while a Coast Guard plane loaded a group of U.S. teens on an evacuation flight.

Vadim Stefanyuk was traveling with the religious group, which cut short its work in Haiti because of the quake. He said he and a few others were traveling in a truck through the city when the quake hit.

Stefanuk said "There were quite a lot of bodies, a lot of screaming, a lot of just panic.  People just confused about what to do.  A lot of the roads got blocked off.  Walls would fall and we couldn't drive. We had to leave the trucks and we took the luggage with us."

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cut short her participation in a meeting with her Asian counterparts to focus on the U.S. response to the quake in Haiti.