FT Chronicle

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)– A half-million Haitians who fled their shattered capital after the earthquake are starting to return to a maze of rubble piles, refugee camps and food lines, complicating ambitious plans to build a better Haiti.

Haitian and international officials had hoped to use the devastation of Port-au-Prince — a densely packed sprawl of winding roads and ramshackle slums that is home to a third of Haiti’s 9 million people — to build an improved capital and decentralize the country.

An estimated 500,000 people fled to the countryside in the days after the quake, many on buses paid for by the government to move quake survivors away from the heart of the destruction. Hundreds of thousands more are camped atop the rubble of their homes, or packed into makeshift camps.

The government is largely powerless to keep people from returning, though Prime Minister Max Bellerive protested this week that Port-au-Prince cannot withstand another influx of people.

President Rene Preval’s “Operation Demolition,” an ambitious plan to clear the rubble, includes provisions to remove people living in unstable buildings by force, according to Aby Brun, an architect and member of the government’s reconstruction team.

Haiti’s government on Friday announced a ban on rebuilding until it completes damage assessments and introduces a new building code to be developed with “international partners.” A notice broadcast in Creole on radio warned people against sleeping under or near any damaged buildings. It was not clear how the government would enforce the edict.

A major part of that reconstruction plan is encouraging Haitians to move away from the capital, providing jobs and basic services in other cities, towns and villages.

Haiti plans to build camps with sanitation outside the city, but Stein said such efforts usually fail. But if the government has a plan to rebuild, Bellerive did not reveal it — and no one knows when, or to what extent a new capital will rise.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Friday in his role as a U.N. special envoy for Haiti relief. He expressed faith in Haiti’s leaders and predicted the country would emerge stronger than before.

And despite Haitian and international efforts, opportunities remain few and far between in the countryside.