Britain Boosts Haiti Funding

UK aid to Haiti will be trebled, the government has confirmed.

International Development Minister Douglas Alexander said funding would grow from £6.2m ($10m) to £20m ($32m).

Money will go towards providing food, shelter, health services and relief work to the country, which was decimated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake last Tuesday.

A Kent man has been confirmed as the first British fatality.

Frederick Wooldridge, a UN worker, moved to Haiti in 2007.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has led the tributes to 41-year-old Mr Wooldridge saying he is hugely grateful for the work he did.

The Department for International Development will announce the funding boost at a European Union meeting later.

Mr Alexander said: "To address the needs of the immediate humanitarian response, the UK government will pledge a further $20m, on top of the $10m initially donated."

Britons have donated £15m to the Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group of 13 major British-based charities.

Oxfam's Graham MacKay said initial aid efforts had been hampered.

"Under normal conditions we would expect to get [aid equipment] out of the door within hours but we had a warehouse in Haiti that got flattened in the earthquake.

"We had an office that was destroyed as well and we've lost staff," he said.

According to Foreign Office officials, 30 Britons living in the region have been found safe and well, however search efforts are continuing for UN worker Ann Barnes, 59, from Essex.

Ms Barnes's sister, Irene Marquet, said: "She must be still there in the rubble which is an awful thing to know."

(PR/GK)