Officials have warned the overall death toll may top 100,000 and say three million people could have been affected by Tuesday's powerful quake which ravaged the poorest nation in the Americas.

The stench from rows of unclaimed rotting corpses hung over the capital Port-au-Prince, amid fears that desperate Haitians who survived the quake will soon fall prey to hunger and disease.

An international aid operation led by the United Nations and the United States was swinging into place, but within a few hours Haitian officials at the clogged airport pleaded for a temporary halt to flights.

It was a blow to relief workers racing against time both to reach thousands still feared trapped in the rubble of the city and to distribute vital aid to destitute survivors before tensions spill over into violence.

Sporadic gunshots were heard across the city, and witnesses said there had already been some looting in a city which has seen bloodshed and violence over the past decades.

A planeload of 50 Chinese soldiers, clad in orange jumpsuits, had flown into the airport at first light bringing with them three sniffer dogs, swiftly followed by two teams of French firefighters also backed by trained dogs.

"People throughout the world want to help," UN chief Ban Ki-moon said, as he also revealed that 36 UN staff had been killed in Tuesday's 7.0 quake, in the worst disaster ever for the global body.

"One of our biggest challenges will be to help them to help Haiti to the utmost," he said, adding UN members states have responded with "an outpouring of support and assistance."

Rescue teams from France, China, the United States, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela were already on the ground, he said as the first contingent of thousands of US troops headed to Haiti in a massive US operation for its stricken neighbor.

Food, water and shelter are all in desperate need, with scores of people erecting makeshift tents from sheets and awnings in a city square.

Schools, hospitals, hotels, ministries and the presidential palace lie in ruins and people caked in blood and dust pleaded for help, next to the bodies of the dead dumped in the grounds of the damaged main hospital.

A global charity warned that two million children may be at risk following the disaster as they struggle to cope alone, many sleeping next to corpses.

US President Barack Obama sought to lift up a despairing people, who were facing a third night without shelter and basic supplies.

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken, you will not be forgotten," he said.

Washington is sending ships, helicopters, planes, rescue teams, a floating hospital and more than 5,000 troops.

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier was to arrive later in the day with destroyers and more Coast Guard ships en route and 5,000 troops on stand-by.

Meanwhile, a special US rescue team from Virginia and their sniffer dogs were combing the rubble in Port-au-Prince. There were shouts of joy as one man was miraculously pulled out alive and in good shape from the remains of the UN compound where some 150 are still missing.

It was a rare moment of hope, among deepening despair.

"This is an unbelievably traumatic experience for children in Haiti," said Gareth Owen, director of emergencies for the London-based global charity Save the Children, shocked by seeing images of children sleeping next to the dead.

"No generation of Haitian children in a hundred years has experienced this scale of disaster before, and we have to act fast to minimize both the physical and psychological damage to them," Owen said.

With every hour crucial, international rescue teams were using heavy lifting gear and sniffer dogs to search the ruins, as well as distributing desperately-needed medicines, food and water.

But lacking heavy lifting equipment, harrowing scenes were being repeated across the city as frustrated workers dug with hands and simple tools to reach the trapped.

Casualty figures were impossible to calculate, although Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the final death toll could be "well over 100,000."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who canceled an Asia trip and returned to Washington, said the death toll would reach "tens of thousands."

Former US president Bill Clinton, a United Nations special envoy to Haiti, warned of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, and said the early estimates were that "nearly three million people -- almost a third of Haiti's population -- may need aid, making this one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas."

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