Port-au-Prince. – I wake with a start as the earth begins to tremble beneath me. A distant muffled roar fills the air and the ground starts shaking violently this way and that. The aftershock rips through the waking city sending traumatised survivors of last week’s earthquake running into the streets. With a magnitude of 6.1 it is the strongest in a series of tremors that continue to plague this beleaguered city.

I get up and leave the tent, entering a world of chaos and confusion. The air is filled with the cries of young children and dogs barking in the rubble filled streets. The camp is a hive of activity as the Dominican Defensa Civil, dressed in their bright orange t-shirts prepares for the day ahead. One week after the quake fewer and fewer survivors are being pulled from the rubble but this mixed team of volunteers and professional search and rescue experts is hoping they will find life somewhere in the stricken city.

I scramble into the back of the pick-up truck and we set off past a series of improvised clinics that share our compound. The injured and the dying lie on the sidewalk feebly brushing flies from their wounds, while frantic doctors and nurses rush from patient to patient administering what treatment they can. We approach the thick steel gates of the compound and Peruvian soldiers from the United Nations move to open them, the sun glinting off their trademark blue helmets.

We know what to expect outside as the crowds have been here for days but still I am unprepared for the heaving mass of starving survivors that crowds the gates. Some are angry at the lack of help they have received, some look desperate and others simply stare with deadened eyes, all hope lost. Behind them on a wall of cracked concrete are painted the words, “WE NEED HELP”. Wielding their batons the soldiers drive back the crowds and slam the gates behind us.

Helicopters buzz to and fro like flies overhead as we drive on through the city. As we draw closer to the centre the full extent of the destruction becomes apparent. On all sides now buildings lie reduced to rubble. Pieces of furniture, cooking utensils and even toys lie scattered amongst the debris, a horrendous reminder of the humanity lost with the collapse of these buildings. Mangled masses of twisted steel protrude above the concrete like broken skeletons. My mask does little to prevent the stench of death from washing over me. After a week in the infernal, searing heat the thousands of bodies yet to be retrieved from under the rubble have started to decompose leaving a sickening odour hanging over the wounded city.

We drive on right into the city centre, past the remains of the presidential palace and then a collapsed church. A statue of Jesus on the cross stands proudly in front of the crumbling building, a powerful symbol for the staunchly religious Haitians. And on, deeper into the inferno we drive, blinded by dust and the smoke from countless heaps of smouldering rubbish. On a street corner to our left people walk past the charred remains of a child but pay it no attention. Death is everywhere. It lurks around every street corner, under every building. We pass a sign hanging in front of a collapsed building: “SOS HELP – 20 DEAD”.

Eventually we reach a pile of rubble indistinguishable from those all around us and we disembark. I am told it was once a bank and that there are still people clinging onto life inside. For an hour the rescue team searches for signs of life. They command silence from the growing crowd of spectators and using sensitive sound-detecting devices they strain for sounds of hope. But none is heard. It appears we have arrived too late.

I see a rag of red and blue protruding from the wreckage and with a gentle tug it comes free. A layer of dust falls off it and the Haitian flag is revealed. A bystander takes it from me and climbing on to the rubble lifts it skywards in defiance. It flutters briefly with a gust of humid wind, providing a splash of colour in the dusty grey wasteland and brief smiles of hope flicker across the faces of some of the watchers. Several gunshots ring out over the city and in an instant the illusion is shattered.

All through Port au Prince the scenes are the same, from the cathedral to the shacks of the Cite Soleil slum. The city is broken and its embattled people are desperate. It has been over a week now since the earthquake struck yet still many parts of the city have received little or no aid. If the people do not receive help soon, it may well be too late.