Orphanage, Collapsed, Carries on in Street

(CBS)  What's most striking about the disaster in Haiti is seeing all the young victims. Many who survived have been left with nothing - and no one. CBS News correspondent Seth Doane visited an orphanage on the capital's east side and reports that this problem is only growing.

The grief in Port-au-Prince is immeasurable - and inescapable.

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It pours onto the streets of the capital city. On one people mourn as a casket makes its slow procession. On another, the dignity of death is overtaken by the duty of protecting the living. Bodies are moved about by heavy construction equipment.

At one Port-au-Prince orphanage, 78 kids survived the quake - orphans who have lost their home once again. It collapsed.

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"Collapsed. Then I said, 'My god. All the kids!'" recalled Madame Evelin Louis-Jacques, who runs the orphanage - now splayed out in the street without even a roof.

"If everybody said, 'I'm not going to care of them' who is going to take care of them?" Louis-Jacques asked.

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So far, she's doing it without aid - all alone.

"You have to get courage to continue," even amid the difficulties, she said.

There are little chairs and little clothes strewn around. It's hard to imagine that the orphanage was once a three-story building. There were more than 30 children who inside during the earthquake - the were among 56 that perished there in an earthquake that made new orphans of many more.

Louis-Jacques says she expects more because of the quake "because so many parents are dead." Will she care for them.

"If I could, I would," she says. But it's clear that she can't, at least for now. There were more than half a million orphans in Haiti before the earthquake. Groups like UNICEF are scrambling to determine how high that number might be now, but it is sure to be staggering.

[MPHgrad]

I hope that the children stay strong and are triumphant. Children are resilient and this tragedy will surely demonstrate it.

[Lisa_Rinewalt]

What a mess!

[thesevenveils]

HEY, IN ALL THIS CATASTROPHE, WHERE IS THE SAUDIS? WHERE IS THE MUSLIM AID? OH, THAT'S RIGHT, HAITI DOESN'T NEED RPGS, AK47S OR ROAD SIDE BOMBS!

[ju78iklo9]

The masses are only reacting to human fight-or-flight genetics. In this regard, during this recent disaster, looting is normal in Haiti. What can good hearted neighbors do to prevent this situation from showing up after a similar disaster of this magnitude in your hometown? Don't want to thing about it now you are too busy? No problem. You will have a similar situation. Have a nice day.

[Laceyjane]

It seems as if we have learned nothing from Katrina. The police and UN peacekeepers are treating the people who have no food, water, or anything of value left, as if they are criminals for trying to find anything in the rubble. It will all be bulldozed away anyhow. For God's sake, we are taking so long to get help established that people are dying while the stupid army figures out logistics. They need medicine there Right Now to help the poor babies who have amputations! If the journalists can get there, why can't the army and doctors?? And don't get me started on the chicken Belgian doctors who left their patients overnight because of a "rumor" of possible violence. Dr Gupta was the only one who stayed without help.