Aid makes it to Haiti, but not onto streets

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Aid is reaching earthquake-torn Haiti, but getting it to the people who need it remains a challenge.

Large quantities of medications, baby formula and other relief supplies are sitting on the tarmac and in warehouses at the Port-au-Prince airport, but no one is moving it out, according to CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

"It's like everywhere we go, just walking through the airport, outside the airport even, people are saying, 'We need supplies,' " Gupta said.

Gupta found pallets of formula, pain medication and antibiotics standing unattended next to the runway.

U.S. military personnel in a warehouse tent at the airport gave Gupta a trash bag full of supplies to take back to a hospital he had visited earlier but couldn't explain why there seemed to be no organized system for distribution.

"There is stuff here waiting to be taken out, that's a true statement," said Air Force Col. Ben McMullen, deputy commander of the Joint Special Operations Air Component. "Is it a lot? I can't speak to it. I will tell you the reason you got it is that everyone on this side, specifically the U.S. government side, is dedicated to getting as much stuff outside as they can. ...

"It's a shame, because you would hope that everything could get out there within seconds. But that kind of infrastructure just isn't in place."

Over at the city's port, authorities pushing to clear bottlenecks hope to restore two-way traffic at the south pier sometime Friday.

The magnitude 7.0 quake that rocked the impoverished nation on January 12 damaged its capital's north and south piers. Haitian authorities and the U.S. military had restored one-way traffic to the south pier, which is the smaller of the two, by Thursday.

Port-au-Prince's north pier remains unusable.

The bottlenecks have delayed food and medical aid to the estimated 3 million Haitians who have been affected by the quake.

At least 72,000 people have been confirmed dead in the quake, according to Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

Canadian troops, meanwhile, were working to open an airport in Jacmel on Thursday, another step that could speed delivery of relief supplies. Jacmel, a seaside town about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Port-au-Prince, is considered Haiti's cultural capital.

Delayed relief supplies have led to at least five deaths, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.

Working under adverse conditions with limited supplies, medical teams have been forced to improvise.

Renzo Fricke, field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said staffers had to buy a saw in the market so surgeons could do amputations. A CNN crew loaned a medic a pocketknife for another operation.

Lacking rubbing alcohol, doctors have used vodka to sterilize equipment and instruments. Surgical patients are receiving over-the-counter pain medicine because doctors lack stronger medication. One nurse used a string of Christmas lights as a makeshift extension cord. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen saw a belt used as a tourniquet. When that broke, a garden hose was used.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that not all aid, particularly medical supplies, has been getting through fast enough. The situation is improving, however, they said.

That offered limited comfort to some Haitians.

"I have not eaten for two days," 32-year-old Anderson Bellegarde said Thursday. "I'm only drinking water."

Bellegarde had waited more than six hours outside a money-wiring branch. Businesses such as Western Union are starting to reopen and are attracting the longest and most visible lines in Haiti's capital, as quake survivors scramble for cash.

Sidewalks were crowded with street vendors and kiosks, and many small food stores were open. Dozens of stalls sold fruits and vegetables at a dusty market along a pocked and rut-filled dirt side street.

More than 300 aid distribution sites are up and running, a senior U.S. administration official said. More than 700,000 meals and 1.4 million bottles of water have been delivered, along with 22,000 pounds of medical supplies, said Lt. Gen. Douglas Fraser of the U.S. Southern Command.

About 120 to 140 flights a day are coming into the single-runway Port-au-Prince airport, compared with 25 a day just after the quake struck last week. More than 840 have landed since the airport was reopened, but there is a waiting list of 1,400 to come in, Fraser said.

To improve air traffic, the U.S. military said Wednesday it had obtained landing rights at the Dominican Republic's air base at San Isidro, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) east of Port-au-Prince.

International aid contributions since the quake have totaled hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. spending for relief in Haiti has hit $170 million, the federal government announced Thursday.

About 13,100 U.S. troops are in and around Haiti -- nearly 2,700 on the ground and 10,400 more offshore. Many Marines spend time in Haiti during the day but sleep on ships at night. More U.S. troops are to arrive by this weekend, bringing the total to about 4,600 troops on the ground.

CNN's Arthur Brice, Susan Candiotti, Jill Dougherty, Eric Marrapodi, Lisa Desjardins and Elise Labott contributed to this report.