It became increasingly, brutally clear: Port-au-Prince is a tomb

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-port-au-prince-deaths

A power blackout, scant water and medicine and decomposing corpses was a lethal cocktail, Peter Hotez, head of the department of microbiology at George Washington University, told CNN.

"What you have is the perfect storm of infection. What you have is a breakdown. It is already a fragile infrastructure with high rates of infectious and neglected tropical disease. Now there are potential breakdowns in sanitation, clean water, housing and subsequent crowding. That's a terrible mix."