Port-au-Prince:
An international team of rescuers unearthed a young man in good condition from deep beneath the concrete and wooden wreckage of a hotel store on Saturday, 11 days after an earthquake crumbled Haiti's capital.
Dozens of onlookers wearing masks against the stench of the city's decaying bodies cheered when Rismond Exantus was carried from a narrow tunnel on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance.
"I was hungry," the 24-year-old told The Associated Press from his hospital bed soon after the rescue. "But every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive."
He said he survived initially by diving under a desk when the rubble started to fall around him.
Trapped in such a small space, he had to lie on his back the entire time and survived by drinking cola, beer and cookies.
One of the man's brothers, Jean Elit Jean Pierre, said Exantus worked as a cashier in a grocery store on the ground floor of the Hotel Napoli. The brothers persuaded rescuers to save Exantus, who has a different name because he had it changed.
From his bed at a field hospital on Saturday, Exantus turned to his family and said, "When you are in a hole I will try to reach out to you, too."
Earlier on Saturday, the United Nations announced the Haitian government had declared an end to rescue operations. Still, dozens of international teams continued to pick through rubble of the 12 January quake.
Saturday's rescue effort started when one of the man's brothers helped get a Greek search team to the site after hearing Exantus' voice. The Greek team managed to locate him and called for help from French colleagues who had better equipment.
In the end, rescuers used chain saws, heavy duty drills and hand saws to dig a narrow tunnel to the man and got him water while working to extract him from under the debris, mostly wood and concrete.
The rescue teams said they sent two women into the tunnel because only they could fit. Carmen Michalska, a Scottish woman who is a member of the Greek team, found Exantus wedged between shelving and debris, and a French female rescuer used a saw to cut away the last bit of debris.
Rescuers speculated the man survived because the building was mostly wooden, which created some air spaces.
There were reports, including from the survivor, that a number of people were still trapped in the rubble and the rescuers were using radar to check the rubble for signs of life.
Dozens of onlookers wearing masks against the stench of the city's decaying bodies cheered when Rismond Exantus was carried from a narrow tunnel on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance.
"I was hungry," the 24-year-old told The Associated Press from his hospital bed soon after the rescue. "But every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive."
He said he survived initially by diving under a desk when the rubble started to fall around him.
Trapped in such a small space, he had to lie on his back the entire time and survived by drinking cola, beer and cookies.
One of the man's brothers, Jean Elit Jean Pierre, said Exantus worked as a cashier in a grocery store on the ground floor of the Hotel Napoli. The brothers persuaded rescuers to save Exantus, who has a different name because he had it changed.
From his bed at a field hospital on Saturday, Exantus turned to his family and said, "When you are in a hole I will try to reach out to you, too."
Earlier on Saturday, the United Nations announced the Haitian government had declared an end to rescue operations. Still, dozens of international teams continued to pick through rubble of the 12 January quake.
Saturday's rescue effort started when one of the man's brothers helped get a Greek search team to the site after hearing Exantus' voice. The Greek team managed to locate him and called for help from French colleagues who had better equipment.
In the end, rescuers used chain saws, heavy duty drills and hand saws to dig a narrow tunnel to the man and got him water while working to extract him from under the debris, mostly wood and concrete.
The rescue teams said they sent two women into the tunnel because only they could fit. Carmen Michalska, a Scottish woman who is a member of the Greek team, found Exantus wedged between shelving and debris, and a French female rescuer used a saw to cut away the last bit of debris.
Rescuers speculated the man survived because the building was mostly wooden, which created some air spaces.
There were reports, including from the survivor, that a number of people were still trapped in the rubble and the rescuers were using radar to check the rubble for signs of life.
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