Barack Obama today announced a large US relief effort for Haiti, where between 45,000 and 50,000 people are feared dead after a devastating earthquake.
The US president said America would give $100m to the aid effort for the stricken Caribbean country and pledged that the people of Haiti "will not be forgotten".
Obama said he had told US agency and department heads to put Haiti at the top of their agenda. "This is one of those moments that cries out for American leadership," Obama, flanked by his most senior officials, told reporters.
Obama's impassioned remarks came as international rescue teams today began arriving in Haiti, where the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake has been put at between 45,000 and 50,000 by the Haitian Red Cross, the first estimate released by a relief organisation.
Aid aircraft from China, France, the US and Spain flew into Port-au-Prince, while a British specialist rescue team that arrived overnight in the neighbouring Dominican Republic also arrived in the Haitian capital.
Gordon Brown described the earthquake as a "tragedy beyond imagination" and urged the British public to support emergency appeals.
"The past 24 hours have been truly horrific for the people of Haiti. It is a catastrophe that is still unravelling," he told a news conference.
He said many people were still buried in the rubble and in need of urgent rescue.
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