| By Jacqui Goddard February 10, 2010 09:56pm THE Haitian government estimated that 230,000 people were killed in January's devastating earthquake, a similar figure to the death toll in the 2004 Asian tsunami. The Times of London reported today fewer than 150 people were rescued following the quake that rocked capital Port-au-Prince, razing 250,000 homes. The story of one man's remarkable survival after 27 days apparently entombed in the ruins provided a much-needed lift for a city that had given up hope of any more miracles. "It's not just amazing that he survived, " said Dushyantha Jayaweera, of the University of Miami field hospital in Port-au-Prince, where Muncie was being treated. "You never say never in medicine. I think it tells us about people not giving up on their loved ones - they kept looking and kept hoping." The facts surrounding Muncie's ordeal remained vague, his story made all the more confusing because he appeared to have been suffering from hallucinations, telling doctors that a man in a white coat had taken him water as he lay confined under the concrete. Medical staff said that he could not have lived for as long as he did without water, but they were unsure exactly how he got it. They speculated that there had been some source close to hand in the ruins of the marketplace where he worked selling rice before the earthquake. The search-and-rescue effort in Haiti was wound down more than two weeks ago, becoming, instead, a recovery operation. |