希拉里承诺:美国将长期援助海地

海地发生的大地震牵动了全球人们的心，大家都在为那里的人民祈福。美国国务卿希拉里在接受电视采访中承诺，美国将尽可能支援海地难民，帮助他们重建家园。

听力文本：

As the death toll rises, the true extent of the damage is difficult, if not impossible to assess. The next 24 hours will be critical for survivors. What is America doing to help?

Joining us with an update on the U.S. relief efforts, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She's live at the State Department this morning.

Madam Secretary, thanks for being with us. I know that you're familiar with Haiti. You were there last April. Your husband is the U.N. envoy to Haiti.

You know, we're seeing obviously a lot of pictures around the ground talking to some people, but overall, the big picture, what's the situation down there, and how capable is the Haitian government of responding to this?

Well, John, you know, it's a devastating situation. There's no doubt as you look at the pictures that are coming back that give you a snapshot, you multiply that over an area that affects about three million people and the collapse of tens of thousands of buildings. But we've got a very coordinated, aggressive response going on.

We have sent some of our crack search and rescue teams into Port-au-Prince. They're beginning their work. We're coordinating with the Haitian president, President Preval. Unfortunately, as you know, the government buildings were terribly damaged by the earthquake. A lot of government members unaccounted for. No communications system. We're supplying a communication system, so they can begin to get up and running.

We're working with the United Nations which was equally devastated by the collapse of their headquarters. So the authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function. We're going to try to support them as they re-establish authority.

The peacekeepers, the U.N. peacekeepers, about 7,000 of them commanded by a Brazilian general are beginning to clear the roads. Our Coast Guard has been unbelievable. They got there first, as you might guess, being in the area. We've got the 82nd Airborne and other military assets coming in. We had a military team reopen the airport so we can start to handle the big heavy planes.

There's an enormous amount of work going on. I'm very proud of our response. We're grateful for the international response, but I think we have a long way ahead of us. The next 24 hours is critical to save those lives that can be saved. We know that from other earthquake and other disasters. But then we have a long way back to try to deal with the devastation of the loss of, you know, life and infrastructure.

Oh, yes, sure. I can imagine that that's a process that's going to take years, if not decades to fully recover when you look at the extent of the devastation and Haiti's ability to recover from it.