Man rescued from rubble a month on

Evan Muncie, who may have been trapped in rubble since the January 12 earthquake hit Port-au-Prince.

A MAN pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti’s capital on Monday night may have been trapped since the earthquake that levelled much of the city four weeks ago.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries.

“He was emaciated. He hadn’t had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet,” said Dr Mike Connelly, of the university’s Project Medishare.

The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said.

The man told doctors that someone was bringing him water while he was trapped, but doctors told CNN that he sounded confused and at times appeared to believe he was still under the rubble.

Connelly said the man must have had some water during the past month to have survived, but Connelly wasn’t sure how he would have accessed it.

The discovery came nearly a month after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, on January 12. More than 200,000 deaths have been blamed on the earthquake.

“I thought he was dead, but God kept him from dying,” his mother said.

His family said he had been missing since January 12. Dr Dushyantha Jayaweera said it was plausible Muncie had been buried since the quake. “It is unusual but not impossible,” he said.