President and minister argue over Haiti death toll

Haiti issued wildly conflicting death tolls for the January 12 earthquake, adding to confusion about how many people actually died – and to suspicion that nobody really knows.

A day after Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue raised the official death toll to 230,000, her office put out a statement quoting President Rene Preval as saying 270,000 bodies had been hastily buried by the government following the earthquake.