First aid ship arrives in flooded Haitian city

Receding flood waters revealed more corpses in the stinking muck, bringing fears the death toll of 163 will rise even higher. But on Friday, the focus was not on counting bodies, but on caring for survivors.

The rusty container ship Trois Rivieres, chartered by the U.N. World Food Program, arrived belching white smoke. Guarded by Argentine peacekeepers brandishing assault rifles, it docked at a remote private port away from the city because the main port was too small.

Within hours, the U.N. began distributing the high-energy biscuits and water to emergency shelters where 40,000 people were marooned and increasingly desperate. At an empty warehouse in the northern section of the city where floodwaters have receded, about 1,000 hungry and thirsty men and women, some cradling youngsters, pushed and shoved as Haitian civil protection authorities in orange T-shirts tried to get them in line. U.N. peacekeeping troops from Argentina stood by, shotguns and assault rifles at the ready.

Anna Achelis, whose house is completely submerged, emerged from the melee holding one of her identical 3-year-old twin girls along with two bottles of water, five vitamin-enriched biscuits and a box of toiletries. She said she hoped the biscuits would stave off hunger for her five children and would try to make them last.

Underscoring the desperation, some people who already had received food knocked cookies from the hands of other people, then scrambled on the floor to retrieve them.

The troops delivered aid to some 2,000 people in two shelters before operations were suspended at dusk, considering it too dangerous to work in the city after dark.

More than 10,000 people have left Gonaives on foot, swimming and wading through floodwaters and heading for the next town about 45 miles to the south, said Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of Food for the Poor.

"The exodus out of Gonaives is massive," he said.

There were 163 confirmed deaths across Haiti from Hanna, including 119 in the Artibonite region that encompasses Gonaives, Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste, director of Haiti's civil protection department, said Friday night.