People walk through fire and rubble in the market area of Port-au-Prince, Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. On the streets, people are still dying, pregnant women are giving birth and the injured are showing up in wheelbarrows and on people's backs at hurriedly erected field hospitals. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

---

Cité Soleil

It is weird driving through the barely passable streets of Port-au-Prince, with all the power cables down everywhere, you notice that somehow the traffic lights are working.

Double weird is that at night when the city is effectively in a blackout, you’ll often see brightly lit billboards.

As it turns out — the traffic lights and billboards are solar-powered here and thus working without a generator. The way of the future perhaps.

— Paul Hunter

---

Fresh water to go

A week after the earthquake and drinkable water is still very scarce in Port-au-Prince.

Those who have access to it are handing out palm-sized water-filled bags to those who are ever more thirsty and dehydrated.

— Paul Hunter

---

Street clinic

Part of a conversation with a surgeon who has been operating on badly injured people at a makeshift sidewalk emergency clinic in Port-au-Prince a week after the earthquake:

A doctor attends to a young girl's arm in one of the several sidewalk clinics in Port-au-Prince. (Paul Hunter/CBC)

Q: What are you seeing? A: It’s a real disaster. It’s the only thing we can say. It’s a disaster.

Q: How are you coping with what you have here? A: Trying to work with what we have and we’re waiting for help.

Q: What kind of injuries have you seen? A: Amputation, amputation, amputation.

Q: Is this what it’s like all the time? A: All the time, all the time, since the beginning.

Q: Do you have anesthetic for the amputations? A: We used to have, but now we are out of stock. So we go with what we have.

Q: What kind of help do you need, what do you need? A: We need drugs, we need plaster, we need fluid, anything they have for a disaster.

Q: How do you comfort people? A: Just talk to them a little bit. Try to talk to them. And try to, well, try to treat them. (Shrugs.)

Q: People are very calm.. A: Yeah so far.

Q: Anything else you want to say? A: Nothing, just ask for help.

— Paul Hunter

---

---

Inflatable boats pull alongside HMCS Athabaskan to take Canadian rescue teams ashore. (Craig Paisley/CBC)

Canada sent two warships to help with the relief effort in Haiti. HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax left Halifax Thursday afternoon.

CBC News has two journalists on board. Reporter Rob Gordon has been a reporter for more than 20 years, specializing in defence issues. And videojournalist Craig Paisley who has spent more than a decade with CBC Nova Scotia.

You can read their full reports of the voyage and the crew's readiness on the Halifax site.