Haitian officials say they plan to relocate 400,000 victims of last week's devastating earthquake to temporary camps outside the capital of Port-au-Prince.
President Rene Preval's chief of staff said the decision is based on concerns over sanitation and possible outbreaks of disease in the city's impoverished settlements.
"They are going to be going to places where they will have at least some adequate facilities," Fritz Longchamp told The Associated Press.
Buses will begin shuttling residents to camps outside the city within a week to 10 days, he added.
Meanwhile, the grim task of clearing the rubble and burying the dead in Haiti's shattered capital continued, as sporadic aftershocks and widespread food shortages were reported around Port-au-Prince.
On the city's outskirts, workers have employed heavy machinery to bury upwards of 10,000 bodies per day in massive, anonymous graves.
The rush to clear the bodies came as alarm grew about the spread of infection and disease in the city's crowded camps and chaotic streets.
Up to 500,000 people are staying in temporary camps, many of them in need of food, water and medicine.
While members of the World Food Programme believe they have delivered food to 200,000 people, it may still take weeks to reach the estimated 2 million who are in need. UN humanitarian chief John Holmes says three million have been affected by the quake.
"We're so, so hungry," said Felicie Colin, 77, as she lay near the ruins of her destroyed nursing home.
The Red Cross has said that the crisis is the largest-ever deployment in the organization's 91-year history.
But despite the mammoth relief effort, supplies have been dwarfed by the sheer scope of the need.
Scuffles have been reported around the city, with a food distribution point being overrun with people who fled the area with food. Fights also broke out.
"They don't see any food and water coming to them, and they are frustrated," said Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
Among the homeless, Joseph St. Juste and his daughter, 5, have been sleeping at a camp which was set up on a golf course. Up to 50,000 others are living in the camp, as well.
Juste said he has been sleeping under a cardboard box and spends his days looking for food and water for his child.
"I wake up for her," he said. "Life is hard anymore. I've got to get out of Haiti. There is no life in Haiti."
Mass Burials
Authorities say some 80,000 earthquake victims have been buried, following the devastating Jan. 12 disaster that killed an estimated 200,000 people.
At a burial site in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, the limbs of men, women and children stick out from different angles.
Burial worker Foultone Fequiert says the dead are on his mind at all times.
"I have seen so many children, so many children. I cannot sleep at night and, if I do, it is a constant nightmare," the 38-year-old Fequiert said.
There is no time to provide burial services for each of the dead, nor to accommodate requests to bury the bodies in shallow graves so their loved ones might eventually retrieve them.
"We just dump them in, and fill it up," said Luckner Clerzier, 39, who was helping guide trucks to another grave site nearby.
Since the quake, Port-au-Prince has felt at least 51 sizeable aftershocks -- including the 5.9-magnitude quake that collapsed structures Wednesday.
The quake-ravaged Haitian capital was rocked by two aftershocks -- of magnitude 4.9 and 4.8 -- in quick succession just before noon on Thursday. People again ran for open ground, but this time there were no casualties or damage reported.
Health risks
Nine days after the 7.0-magnitude quake hit, survivors are at a point where they, too, are at risk of death, as infection and sickness take hold in the population.
With so many people living outdoors and in temporary camps, experts say it is likely that problems with disease will follow.
The Pan American Health Organization says that more than 500,000 people are living in a series of about 280 makeshift settlements, largely found in parks and other open spaces.
"The next health risk could include outbreaks of diarrhea, respiratory tract infections and other diseases among hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in overcrowded camps with poor or nonexistent sanitation," said Dr. Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.
Elder also said that injured people have been dying of sepsis from untreated wounds in the aftermath of the quake -- a problem that is exacerbated by the overwhelming demand for medical treatment.
Canadian Response
The Canadian death toll rose to 14 on Thursday, with the government saying that 321 Canadians are still missing.
More than 1,000 Canadian troops are now in the country, working on providing aid and stabilizing security.
Canada plans to deploy a field hospital to the country with about 100 staff members, including two surgical teams and room for more than 50 patients.
CTV's Paul Workman, reporting on the ground in Haiti, said the toll of Canadians and other foreigners could rise in the coming days, as workers search the rubble of the Hotel Montana.
"It was of course the best hotel in Haiti, and a lot of foreign workers stayed there," he said.
By Thursday, the number of survivors found in the rubble was dwindling, and so was the hope of finding anyone alive in the hotel.
Some family members of Canadians feared missing the hotel have complained about the speed of the search, with some clawing through the rubble themselves with their bare hands.
"It's going to take quite a while to really know how many of these Canadians are under the rubble," ambassador Gilles Rivard told The Canadian Press.
"I'm quite optimistic that the number will not go very high, but there is no doubt there are more Canadians under the rubble at this time."
Elsewhere, a five-year-old boy was found in the ruins of a home on Wednesday and was rescued by relatives who had been looking for him for a week, said Margaret Aguirre of the International Medical Corps.
"It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and each day the needles are disappearing," said searcher Steven Chin.
With files from The Associated Press
