Aid trickles in to rural Haiti after quake

A drip of foreign aid has begun to reach more rural areas of southwestern Haiti, arriving five days after a powerful earthquake killed more than 2000 and flattened tens of thousands of buildings into rubble.

Hundreds of people lined up to receive provisions from the UN World Food Programme at a camp in the rural town of Camp-Perrin for people displaced by Saturday's 7.2 magnitude quake. The official death toll stood at 2189 but was expected to rise.

A mudslide caused by two nights of heavy rain earlier this week had partly blocked the main road leading to the area. Any more rain could make it impassable, locals said on Thursay. People were sleeping out in a field under trees.

"No one is coming to help us," said Montette Joseph, a 33-year-old with four children who had travelled two hours in a pickup truck to reach the distribution site. The price of small bags of drinking water had tripled since the quake, she lamented.

"I am looking for assistance so I can rebuild my home and take care of my children. We are living a tragedy."

Many Haitians have complained about the sluggish arrival of aid, while fresh tremors are adding to anxiety.

In the coastal city of Les Cayes, one of the areas worst hit by the quake, residents were jolted from their beds by a fresh aftershock overnight.

There were no immediate reports of damage, a police officer said. Families slept on mattresses on the streets across the city, nervous about the state of buildings.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and is still recovering from a 2010 quake that killed more than 200,000.

Foreign nations have been ramping up aid deliveries. The United States on Thursday dispatched the warship USS Arlington to offer humanitarian assistance while the US Coast Guard was transporting the injured from Les Cayes to Port-au-Prince.

France also sent a ship with humanitarian cargo, a helicopter and 25 soldiers, said Florence Parly, the French armed forces minister.

The latest disaster struck just weeks after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7, plunging the nation of 11 million people deeper into a political crisis that has worsened its economic woes.

The national civil protection agency said late on Wednesday 12,200 people were injured in the quake.

But local officials are still tallying the dead.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry said late on Wednesday the whole country was physically and mentally devastated.

"Our hearts are tearing apart; some of our compatriots are still under the rubble," he said, appealing for the troubled nation to come together at a time of crisis. "The days ahead will be difficult and often painful."