It's hard to know just how big the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti will be. It is certainly in the tens of thousands - 50,000, says the country's president, Rene Preval.
As the extent of the devastation becomes clear, the international community is trying to get desperately needed assistance to Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries.
But what will it take to rebuild the country? At this moment of acute crisis, how do we turn the previous failures in international development into success? Our Washington-based environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg visited Haiti last summer and found the country ill-equipped to deal with natural disasters, even though they've struck with awful regularity.
Peter Beaumont, the Observer's foreign affairs editor, says the reconstruction of areas affected by the tsunami provides a useful model.
