Their work is set to multiply Port-au-Prince's already sprawling slums, transforming makeshift refugee camps across sports grounds and wasteland.

At the far end of a spread of sheets and string in the Parc La Paix sports stadium, survivors of the massive January 12 earthquake hammer nails into clumsy structures.

"Each person builds his own house," said 50-year-old Pierre Felio, hammering a wooden frame.

"We picked up the materials in the street. My house isn't finished yet but I sleep on a mattress here for now."

Several naked people washed with buckets of soapy water in a corner of former bleachers, as the camp stretched out across the dusty field.

Many inhabitants said they previously lived in stone houses in an area nearby, but those collapsed when the 7.0-strength quake shook large parts of the Caribbean nation.

In another corner of the stadium, 21-year-old Nichama Theodor tidied the inside of a roofless shack as her five-year-old daughter played by her side.

"We have to get it finished before it starts raining," Theodor said, after the UN warned that the rainy season was about to begin, potentially causing further problems for survivors.

"I don't know how we'll keep going because I have no money," added the fluent French speaker who said she wanted to become a nurse.

Elsewhere in the camp, many concentrated on basic necessities.

Two men skinned a cat next to one tent, preparing to feed it to their families.

"We have nothing at all," said one of their wives, Guillaulaine Elly, 35, sitting on the ground next to her two daughters.

"But we don't want to leave the capital, our family is here."

As the assistance effort gained pace in parts of Port-au-Prince and the worst-affected towns of Jacmel and Leogane, a huge relocation of survivors out of the capital was underway.

Around one million people were left homeless amid the rubble, the interior ministry has estimated.

But residents at the stadium, and also a nearby site where corrugated iron structures were springing up, said they had no desire to leave Port-au-Prince despite not yet having received food or water from numerous foreign aid groups here.

"A friend lent me a bit of money to build a new house," said 28-year-old technology student Ouewtener Homann.

"I was born in the capital and I want to stay here. I'd prefer to stay here, even if I die here," Homann said.

Among the grey mass of iron shacks, one bright blue structure stood out.

It had a rug and a little furniture inside and 23-year-old Celeste Bruno put the finishing touches on a wooden door he found in the street.

"It's the first house I've ever built," Bruno said. "If I find the material for it, I'll build more for other people."

earlier related report
Amid daily battle to survive, Haitians eye the future
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Jan 23, 2010 - Hundreds of thousands of Haitians will be living off foreign aid and in temporary housing for years to come, as experts warn rebuilding the quake-ravaged nation may take at least a decade.

Almost two weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shattered the lives of the nine million people in one of the world's poorest countries, a massive aid operation has cranked into place to provide food, water and shelter.

With the government on Saturday officially calling off the search and rescue efforts for any more survivors beneath the rubble, the focus for international aid organizations has switched to helping hundreds of thousands left destitute.

The Haitian government estimates more than 112,000 people were killed in the January 12 quake -- making it the deadliest ever recorded in the Americas.

Most of the bodies which lay rotting for days on the streets in the chaotic aftermath of the quake have now been collected in a grim operation, and buried in mass graves outside the Caribbean nation's capital.

Almost 200,000 people were injured, when for almost a minute the plates along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault shook with such force that buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, and other towns like Leogane and Jacmel, toppled like decks of cards.

US naval vessels and floating hospitals have backed up an army of field and tents hospitals set up by aid organizations, amid accusations that scores may have died in the first few days because medical aid was too slow to arrive.

Isabel Lopez, of the World Health Organization, said 150 health facilities were now up and running in the city, but she added: "There is still a strong need for post operative care."

Around a million people were left homeless, the interior ministry estimates, and the government has embarked on a massive relocation program to move 500,000 people to camps hastily erected in the countryside.

Chief UN spokesman Nicholas Reader said the Haitian government had identified 500 sites where tented encampments might be set up for those now living in squalid, makeshift camps.

"Haiti's recovery must begin with its people, strong, resilient and impatient to get to work rebuilding their lives and their country," UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said.

According to UN data, more than 1.2 billion dollars has been pledged in funding to help Haiti.

Some 62 foreign search and rescue teams are still in Port-au-Prince, and helped pull a young man out of the rubble Saturday 11 days after the quake.

But with hopes almost extinguished of finding more survivors, the aid operation led by the United States and the United Nations is now concentrated on distributing tonnes of food and water to the needy.

And the needs are enormous. Even before the quake, 70 percent of Haitians were living on less than two dollars a day.

But fears of an eruption of violence in a nation which has known decades of bloodshed and political upheaval have failed to materialize, with many praising the Haitians' dignified response among their despair.

There have been tales of neighbors sharing out their meager supplies, and organizing watches to keep looters and pillagers at bay.

"I think the people have been heroic," said former US president Bill Clinton, now UN special envoy to Haiti, as he toured one hospital last week.

Despite damage to the main airport in Port-au-Prince, it has been kept open under US military control, and aid flights are also now unloading on three other airstrips -- including two in neighboring Dominican Republic.

US forces, due to reach 20,000 troops, have also worked to reopen the damaged port to unblock logjams of aid, which has poured into the country from overseas.

"Haitians are grieving, but they are also buoyed by the generous outpouring of support from around the world," said Mark Fried of Oxfam.

"Despite the losses they have suffered, they are working hard to turn the empty lots, golf courses and churchyards where they have taken refuge into places where they can live in dignity."

But many organizations warn the coming weeks will be crucial in a race to provide more permanent shelter before the rainy season comes.

Michael Delaney, director of humanitarian response at Oxfam America, said there were serious fears of disease.

"There's concern over sewage, human waste. Very few of the hundreds of sites where people have set up camp have latrines set up," he told AFP, warning that if waste was washed into other areas "it will create a public health mess."

International donors meet Monday in Montreal to prepare a summit on rebuilding Haiti, amid hopes the quake may prove a turning point in the nation's history.

The UN, which suffered its worst ever disaster in the quake with the deaths of more than 40 UN staffers, has launched a program to create 220,000 jobs in rubble removal and reconstruction, paying each person some five dollars a day.

"There is going to be a long and challenging recovery and we need sustained support," said Jonathan Reckford, chief executive officer of the organization, Habitat for Humanity. "People need to think in terms of a 10-year time frame."

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