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Haiti estimates 140,000 dead, violence breaks out (Catherine Bremer and Andrew Cawthorne)

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Local children look into the camera in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, January 15, 2010. Thousands of people left hurt or homeless in Haiti's earthquake begged for food, water and medical assistance Friday as the world rushed to deliver aid to survivors before their despair turned to anger. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva

Jan. 15, 2010 -- PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -- Haitian authorities said Friday they believe 140,000 people died in the earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation and that three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, would need to be rebuilt.

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

"We are cleaning the streets of the dead bodies and putting them in mass graves. We have buried 40,000 people. We think there are 100,000 more on top of that," Aramick Louis, secretary of state for public safety, told Reuters.

"There are a lot of people under the rubble," he said.