Haiti says 200,000 may be dead, violence breaks out

By Catherine Bremer and Andrew Cawthorne

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - As many as 200,000 people died in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, will need to be rebuilt, authorities in the Caribbean country said on Friday.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies. We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters.

Some 40,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, Secretary of State for Public Safety Aramick Louis said.

If the casualty figures turn out to be accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

Three days after it struck, gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors living in makeshift camps on sidewalks and streets strewn with rubble and decomposing bodies, as quake aftershocks rippled through the hilly neighborhoods.

Louis said President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive were living in and coordinating the government response from the judicial police headquarters near the airport and their main concern was that desperation was turning to violence.

"We are sending our police into areas where bandits are starting to operate. Some people are robbing, are stealing. That is wrong," Louis said. "The people in the refugee places, once they do not find food and assistance, they are getting angry and upset. Our message to everyone is to stay calm."

Governments and aid groups around the world poured relief supplies and medical teams into the Caribbean state -- already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.