Homeless Haitian earthquake victims to be moved to resettlement areas

Haiti's government will move 400,000 homeless earthquake victims from their improvised camps throughout the shattered capital to new resettlement areas on the outskirts, a senior Haitian official said Thursday.

Authorities are worried about sanitation and outbreaks of disease in settlements, said Fritz Longchamp, chief of staff to President Rene Preval.

They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities," Longchamp said.

With more than 200,000 feared dead and 1.5 million left homeless by the Jan. 12 quake, the government was still trying to assess the full extent of the crisis.

Longchamp said buses would start moving the displaced people in a week to 10 days. Brazilian U.N. peacekeepers were already leveling land in the suburb of Croix des Bouquets for a tent city.

Hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed have settled in more than 200 open spaces around the city. The lucky ones secured tents for their families, but most have made do living on blankets or under plastic sheets strung between tree limbs.