We're driving around now with a group of patients that I met at the hotel. We're in search of gasoline. The concern is that the supplies will run out pretty quickly and our vehicle will be left stranded. A few blocks earlier, we saw a four-to-five story commercial building that looks like it has been completely toppled over.
An enormous bulldozer was trying to pull out some of the rubble. There was a pile of bodies next to that. Just to my left, we're passing another area where a number of bodies have been piled, many of them have just been cast aside, some of them are covered in sheets of plastic. There's a stream of pedestrians through most parts of the city. When people pass these areas with bodies, they just simply cover their faces with their shirts. Some of them have surgical masks or other things to cover their noses. We've just come upon the large plaza near many government buildings downtown. It seems to be a flood of people displaced from their homes right now staying here, living here. It's almost a tent community in some parts. There are tents and sheets hung up in some places, elsewhere there are just people with their belongings gathered around them.
We turned another corner around the central plaza area and the density of people is even greater over here. A number of people have taken over a children's climbing set. They've set up sheets and tents and what look like make shift sleeping bags. Scores of people have apparently gathered here, hoping that there will be supplies. From what we can tell, other than one fire engine distributing water, there's really no presence of any government or other international aid groups here.
