Haiti raises earthquake's death toll to 230,000

A woman walks through a destroyed area in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. A powerful earthquake hit Haiti on Jan. 12. AP

The government initially estimated 150,000 dead on January 24, apparently from bodies being recovered in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince, the capital that was near the epicentre.

Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said the government now counts 230,000 deaths.

But she says the new figure is not definitive. She says it does not include bodies buried by private funeral homes in private cemeteries or the dead buried by their own families.
The new figure gives the quake the same death toll as the 2004 Asian tsunami.

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