I sat with the UN teams as we looked over where the worst-hit areas were. They roughly fell into the areas of Delmas-40b, Delmas-95, Canapevert and the major Caribbean supermarket area.

All around the streets you see orphaned children walking around- some with extended family, others with adults who have decided to keep an eye on them until they can be guaranteed a safe place to be.

The earthquake has orphaned tens of thousands of children and it is important we put steps in place to give them some security. MH teams here set up temporary schools because this is one of the best ways to keep children in a sense of routine and avoid any shock and trauma they may be in after losing a parent.

The camp sites the children stay in are completely overrun and lacking water. We managed to supply many thousands of litres of safe drinking water to camp sites and this simple act was quite literally, save lives Alhamdulillah.

Many aid agencies have moved in to provide medical treatment to the earthquake survivors, but you see a tiny number of professionals who simply cannot cater for the thousands of people who need their help. We set up field camp hospitals where MH medical teams worked alongside other doctors who flew in from other countries to join in the relief efforts.

One major problem here is that many of the larger hospitals are a considerable distance from the camp site areas and so people struggle to get to them. To cater for this, we have set up an ambulance service to take more seriously injured survivors to hospitals further away.

As well as taking care of those who are living, a massive clearing operation has begun to sift through the rubble and remove corpses of those trapped in buildings. There is a serious risk of contamination and the spread of illness so we are working round the clock with the World Economic Forum to try to stem this as soon as we can.

Although work is in progress, it is clear to see that the needs of the Haitians left behind still remain formidable. As Muslim Hands is despatching further aid teams to help with the short and medium-term aid efforts, it is important we continue to pull together in order to give Haiti and chance to stand again.

Through this distribution centre, we are sending our aid in pickup trucks to three different distribution centres. They have over 10,000 registered internally displaced people. The number is growing every hour as more people hear there are food and water supplies here.

We have registered ourselves with the UN, but are using our own networks to distribute our aid. The UN are inundated with aid agencies who are trying to get security for their relief efforts and this is seriously hindering other people’s efforts.

We have employed a young man named Abdul Aziz who will work to coordinate the relief distribution in Port ay Prince. We are also setting up an office in the Dominican Republic and have employed Abdul Lateef (see previous blog entries about Abdul Lateef) who will be sending relief items from the Dominican Republic and coordinating the whole emergency between the UK, Dominican Republic and Port au Prince. I have organised a meeting tomorrow with the mosque committee to rent us some space in a neighbouring mosque so we can establish an MH office.

The wheels are turning now but the job ahead of us is great. We are working flat out and need your consistent support because the work being carried out here is, quite literally, saving lives.

There is no privacy of any kind for anyone. I don't know how they will survive because if the lack of water does not kill them soon then disease will. I am really struggling to get the images of dead people lying around everywhere out of my head - some I saw were stuffed in suitcases or wrapped in rugs or even stuffed in plastic bins where they are gotten to by the pigs. The stench is like a solid thing that pervades everything and you find yourself dry retching all the time.

When you go into the ghettos the desperation is heartbreaking - really impossible to avoid weeping because nobody is helping them and I fear many of them will die. If you try to distribute food on the street then you will certainly be rushed by a mob. If you have something that may keep them alive then they will try to kill you if you prevent them from taking it from you - hard to blame them if no one is helping and they are living next to dead bodies.

The UN presence here is restricted to the main roads - in the ghettos you don't see them and that is where the scenes are truly hellish. It is like some apocalyptic nightmare where zombies will converge on you the moment you stop in the pickup. You must keep moving. You load the truck up with a force of men around you to hold crowds back - the strong ones will try to use force to take it and the weak ones will beg and plead.

The rule is if they converge en masse then you simply step away and let them do what they want and hopefully they will leave you alone after they empty the supplies. When we finished delivering the seemingly pitiful number of supplies we went to the UN - who have setup a whole city within a city to co-ordinate the relief efforts - yet they are unable to supply food in the ghettos where it is needed most. The UN machine is coming together and then there will be results insha’Allah - but in the meantime we can only fight fires that feel desperately hopeless against the scale of this. More earthquakes are predicted and it is hard to imagine any light anytime soon.

Interestingly, the mosques in Port-au-Prince have become local havens and the informal camps outside these are growing quickly. Strongly built, their structures have survived almost intact. Over 10,000 homeless people have gathered around these mosques, and we used Tawheed Mosque as a storage and distribution point yesterday. Our local teams are approaching local churches to receive and distribute aid from the next convoy we are bringing in from Santo Domingo.

We're scaling up the efforts by accessing more trucks, both in Santo Domingo and also Haiti and have taken on more volunteers here who can help with the logistics of getting food and water to as many people as possible.

They are fast losing hope and many of them are angry. Looking around, it’s easy to see why. We need to do so much, and the responsibility to reach as many of these people as possible is on my mind constantly.

Our first convoy consists of two trucks and a pickup, we’ve loaded it with food and water and these supplies are already attracting a lot of attention. Without even entering the heart of the disaster zone, there are already skirmishes breaking out here and there. The border areas are definitely unsafe. With the clock ticking on, we made the decision to go straight into Port au Prince without waiting for our armed guard to arrive.

This was a decision I was hoping I wouldn’t come to regret later on, but we couldn’t afford to wait longer than necessary. If we left any later, our arrival in Port au Prince would be at night and that would be a bigger risk- one which we couldn’t afford to take.

The 3 hour journey from the border into Port au Prince was absolutely heart wrenching. It was difficult not to feel both physically sick and sick inside. As we drive through, the stench of rotting bodies is overwhelming. Under the rubble there are many more dead bodies, and with the temperature at 32?c the smell intensifies. The sight of disfigured corpses littering the streets is so surreal that not even the darkest imagination could conjure up such images- I can’t believe it’s actually real, here and now.

The homeless families left behind are living with sheets as the only ‘shelter’ they have against the piercing sun. They live amongst the rubble which lines the roads and streets for mile after mile, neighbourhood after neighbourhood. It’s almost as though the rubble is part of the design of the streets.

You might all be hearing reports that aid is now being distributed at the airport, but believe me, whatever is being given simply isn’t enough and where we are, the aid isn’t getting through to any of the areas we have seen. Three hours later, we arrived in Port au Prince at a place called Masjid Tawheed. It was packed with hundreds of families- Muslims and non Muslims alike- who are patiently waiting for somebody to help.

There is no electricity, running water or sanitation facilities of any kind, yet there is a strange calm here. Inside the mosque grounds, there is almost the atmosphere of a siege. It’s so difficult to describe and put into words.

Venturing outside is not an option, nobody attempts it unless they absolutely have to. There are huge numbers of heavily armed military vehicles and even more soldiers we have seen, yet the last thing you could call this city is secure.

We have with us a group of MH volunteers and locals who have joined the effort to distribute aid. We work by torchlight throughout the night to make food parcels ready for distribution. Today we have been using a small pickup truck to distribute small batches aid to four areas around the capital.

We have established four other points where distribution is taking place. What we have is nothing in the face of the extraordinary need facing us. We are due to run out of supplies within hours. Millions here are waiting for us to reach out to them.

The people of Haiti have reached their most desperate hour, please keep the momentum going in the UK and do not forget them here. More to come tomorrow insha’Allah.

Finding a way into Haiti has been a huge struggle for so many aid agencies in the area. Here in Santo Domingo, we’ve been looking into all the ways we can network with agencies on the ground to travel into Port au Prince and the worst affected area. Fears about security have heightened since raids and lootings have become more common.

It seems here everybody has anecdotes and stories to tell of how the desperation amongst the people has lead to rioting and lawlessness breaking out. We’re going into an area where many people have not received any food or drink since the earthquake struck.

For our aid mission into Port au Prince tomorrow we have gathered our aid convoys together. We’ve been fortunate to find that one of the groups we’ve being working with at the border belong to one of the most important centres of aid delivery; a place which happens to the main mosque in the capital called Al Nur.

Those who have survived the earthquake are using the mosque as a safe haven and hub to serve the entire community affected, from here they come to share food and resources amongst each other and coordinate aid efforts.

With us is Mr Abdul Lateef, a security specialist (one much needed here!) who, with a convoy of 15 people, will be travelling with us and our convoys of food and water supplies. This mosque, Al Nur, is one of four in Port au Prince and caters to the 10,000 strong Muslim population of Haiti. Al Nur is being used as a safe haven for the entire community and many come in to share food and resources amongst one another.

We have with us $15,000 worth of supplies to distribute recommended list of relief items including tins of fish, a variety of cereals, biscuits, baked beans, dried milk, tinned food, basic hygiene items, water purification tablets.

As well as this, the convoy will also deliver 5000 litres of water and for people who have been without the most basic amenities; we hope this saves lives insha’Allah. Because of the riots and looting, it is near impossible to travel with large trucks as too unsafe if they are not guarded and on a secured route.

Even just in Santo Domingo, we’ve seen so many displaced people using homes as makeshift clinics. The hospitals are overflowing and many of the agencies are stuck on the border. As soon as we get to Port au Prince tomorrow we’ll establish our base and begin the distribution immediately. Port au Prince is so highly populated and is very rural so there are less places for people to go for food and water.

We’ll be updating you tomorrow as we get into Port au Prince and begin distribution. For the time being, please keep your thoughts and prayers with the people of Haiti and for the safe and effective distribution of aid.