The relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres, which is one of the groups operating on the ground, has sent reinforcements to assist its already sizable presence in Haiti. Speaking from Brussels, the MSF Operations Director Jerome Oberreit described to the BBC some of the difficulties his staff were facing.
"The way they can operate is extremely difficult. They don't have the infrastructure that they would have had. So very hard work, very difficult and extreme of patients wounded with crush syndromes, with head injuries, the trauma, very serious trauma, a lot of them. Well, we have to do all we can to try and do some of the life-saving work that's necessary with like I said very little infrastructure to be able to do so. So now the priority is to be able to set up surgical facilities that can answer to the acute need of this population."
The United Nations says at least 36 members of its mission in Haiti are now confirmed dead with many others missing.
This is Deborah Mackenzie with the latest World News from the BBC.
The BBC has learned that the president of Burkina Faso had met a senior adviser to the International Criminal Court just before Guinea's controversial military leader arrived in his country. The court is investigating the killing of more than 150 opposition demonstrators in September by troops loyal to the Guinean leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. If the ICC decided to issue an arrest warrant for the Captain Camara, Burkina Faso would be obliged to detain him. Captain Camara had been receiving medical treatment in Morocco following an assassination attempt.