Haiti Earthquake: There's a sign of hampering the aid effort

Medecins Sans Frontiers, a Geneva-based aid group said that "There is little sign of significant aid distribution." as complained by the leading aid group.

Since the Haitians are desperate for food, water and medical supplies, that desperation has led to violence, forcing police to fire on a crowd of looters. There were also reports of lynch mobs killing looters and setting their bodies on fire.

However, the major difficulty was the bottleneck at the airport. It said a flight carrying its own inflatable hospital was denied landing clearance and was being trucked overland from Santo Domingo, almost 200 miles away in the Dominican Republic, delaying its arrival by 24 hours.

The French, Brazilian and other officials had earlier complained about the airport's refusal to allow their supply planes to land. A World Food Program official told The New York Times that the Americans' priorities were out of sync, allowing too many US military flights and too few aid deliveries.

Alain Joyandet, French co-operation minister, said he had protested to Washington about the US military's management of the airport where he said a French medical aid flight had been turned away.