In the week since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shattered this capital and jolted observers around the world, authorities have buried 70,000 bodies, about a third of the estimated final toll, officials said Tuesday. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that at least 72,000 bodies had been recovered, a figure that did not include the unknown number of bodies buried by families or collected by the U.N. peacekeeping mission here.

It is not known how many of the dead had been identified before being buried and how these burials occurred in mass graves. “We know that bodies were buried, we feel inappropriately,” said Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. He cited the lack of refrigeration as a complicating factor.

“Despite our best efforts, situations, circumstances are such that we are disappointed in many cases on how it was handled outside the control of everyone,” he said.

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PAHO, which coordinates the response of the health sector, has provided an initial estimate of 200,000 dead.

At least 28 of them are American, the U.S. State Department announced Tuesday.
Despite the mounting death toll, humanitarian workers focused Tuesday on the living. The United Nations has estimated that 3 million people need food, water, shelter and medical assistance.

Some needed more than that – they needed help. In total, 43 international rescue teams composed of 1,700 people conducted some 90 rescue operations, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

Tuesday evening, a team of New York City Fire Department and Police Department rescuers pulled two children from the rubble of a two storey building in the capital. The 8-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl were taken to a field hospital in Israel.

Tuesday afternoon, Ena Zizi was rescued from the rubble near the National Cathedral, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported.

His son, Maxime January, told CNN he has never given up hope that she would be found.

“We’ve been praying a lot for that to happen,” he told CNN Tuesday afternoon, about 15 minutes after she was rescued.

Rescue teams said there are two other survivors in May under the same stack.

Andrus of PAHO said the need for blood donors is urgent, lack of refrigeration complicate the ability of medical workers “to store it safely.

The generosity of the world has continued to overwhelm the capacity of the airport of Port-au-Prince to treat. The result is that some assistance is sorely sat on the tarmac.

U.S. Army Maj. Daniel Allyn, deputy commander of Joint Task Force of Unified, said flights would be diverted to two other ports of entry within the next day or two to relieve the pressure. On an average day before the earthquake, the airport was handling 13 commercial aircraft in the days since, he has hosted more than 200, he said.

Some flights were diverted to San Domingo, causing congestion, again, Andrus said.

Nevertheless, some progress has been made. Many roads were impassable that after the initial quake had been cleared so that supplies could be trucked to those who need it, “he said.