LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The international relief mission for Haiti is gathering momentum. As part of the response, search and rescue teams are moving through the capital city Port-au-Prince trying to locate people who might still be stranded beneath collapsed buildings.
NPR's Jackie Northam spent the day with a rescue team and has this report.
JACKIE NORTHAM: Even before the sun is over the horizon, search and rescue teams based at the main airport here are preparing for a long day. One particular convoy is made up of three dozen search and rescue workers from Spain and Iceland. They climb into the back of two large dump trucks loaded with gear and search dogs. The Spanish squad works the dogs. Icelandic squad members say they're more at home searching for avalanche survivors. But for the moment, they and other rescue workers are driving through the wreckage of Haiti's capital city.
(Soundbite of machinery)
NORTHAM: Despite the early hour, the streets are choked with people. The first stop for the search and rescue team is a flattened hotel in what could be charitably described as a dicey neighborhood.
Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
NORTHAM: The rescue workers put on their hard hats as they pass through one particularly unruly stretch. We could see looters carting off bags of rice and anything they could lay their hands on.
Michael Olafsson, the safety officer with the Icelandic team, says the area is considered a red zone.
Mr. MICHAEL OLAFSSON (Safety Officer, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): So the security is very - and you notice on the way, there were local militias guarding. You could see how they would be taking toll of people going pass.
NORTHAM: The convoy passes block after block of flattened buildings before finally stopping in front of the hotel. Local rescue organizations said they had received reports people could be trapped under the building. All of them said often the reports are nothing more than rumors but they have to be checked out. While the rescue workers unload the trucks, the squad leader, Magnus Hakonarson, talks with locals watching the operation.
Mr. MAGNUS HAKONARSON (Squad Leader, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): Can you ask if there's an employee of the hotel somewhere in this group, somebody who knows the building?
NORTHAM: With the aid of a translator, Hakonarson starts to get information. He draws a rough sketch of the hotel.
Unidentified Man #2: About four stories.
Mr. HAKONARSON: How many? Four stories?
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
Mr. HAKONARSON: And it's a cellar?
Unidentified Man #2: What's that?
Mr. HAKONARSON: Basement?
Unidentified Man #2: No, there's no basement.
Mr. HAKONARSON: No basement.
Unidentified Man #2: No basement.
Mr. HAKONARSON: Only you walk in here.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
Mr. HAKONARSON: One...
Unidentified Man #2: Two, three, four.
Mr. HAKONARSON: ...two, three, four, and this is the room.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
NORTHAM: The search teams send dogs into the ruins of the hotel. Petur Goodmundsson, a paramedic and technology specialist, says a dog will mark his spot if he detects anything.
Mr. PETUR GOODMUNDSSON (Paramedic, Technology Specialist; Iceland Search and Rescue Team): They bark or turn their head in a special way. And the dog handler knows his dog, so that dogs mark in a different way.
NORTHAM: If two dogs indicate there may be a person still alive, a listening device is installed. Rescue workers will knock on the concrete. Goodmundsson says they're not expecting to hear the word help.
Mr. GOODMUNDSSON: We are listening for noises and people moving or people knocking. Like the ones we found yesterday, the person was knocking, so we told them, knock three times and they knocked three times. Then we know it's not the water dripping or animal, rats or something like that.
NORTHAM: If they can talk to the survivor, rescue workers try to determine if anyone else is trapped. Despite all the efforts to find someone at the hotel, it's determined there are no survivors and the teams start packing up. Next stop is the University of Haiti. As the trucks head off, squad leader Hakonarson says it's tough leaving.
Mr. HAKONARSON: Searching is easy. Leaving an area with relatives, that's a difficult thing.
(Soundbite of vehicles)
NORTHAM: By the time they reach the university, another search and rescue group from the U.S. is already working the area. But local people start approaching the group saying they're sure people are alive in a number of other buildings. The rescue crews question each person. It's a long process and requires looking around damaged buildings, says Erlander Birgisson, a structural engineer on the Icelandic squad.
Mr. ERLANDER BIRGISSON (Structural Engineer, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): Well, just going to see what it looks like now. I can see from the pictures they took it's very unstable, so we won't stay long in here. That's quite unstable. This will be going down in the next - if we have an aftershock, this will go down. Small tremor, yes, will bring this down.
NORTHAM: Birgisson says it's incredibly difficult to try to rescue people in the ruins of a city this size, with so many houses and with so little time remaining.
Jackie Northam, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.