Rescue workers searched frantically Wednesday for survivors of the worst earthquake to strike Haiti in more than two centuries, while officials warned that the death toll could reach well over 100,000.
Haitians piled bodies in the streets of Port-au-Prince as they dug through the rubble for neighbors, friends or loved ones missing since Tuesday afternoon, when the 7.0-magnitude quake struck near the capital of the Caribbean nation of 9 million.
As the United States prepared to send ships, helicopters, transport planes and a 2,000-member Marine unit, and governments and aid groups sent water, biscuits and tons of emergency medical supplies, Baltimore's relief community joined in the huge international relief effort.
Catholic Relief Services, Lutheran World Relief and World Relief were dispatching emergency assessment teams to join staff members stationed in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Meanwhile, the hospital ship USNS Comfort, docked in Baltimore, stood ready for deployment.
"A lot of houses destroyed, hospitals, schools. A lot of people in the street dead," Haiti's president, René Préval, told CNN. "I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the event and how to manage."

