Aid worker prepares to help Haiti earthquake victims

Aid worker Chris Webster has been told to prepare for the worst

The United Nations says it's sending an extra 3,500 troops to Haiti, a week after the devastating earthquake hit the Caribbean country.

The UN says people are still being pulled from the rubble alive with almost 100 rescued from flattened buildings so far.

The US military has started dropping food and water supplies from the air but there are reports of looting and violence as people become desperate.

Many British aid workers are already in Haiti helping with the relief effort and more are preparing to fly out.

Chris Webster has been an aid worker on the World Vision disaster response team for eight years.

He explains what they'll be doing in Haiti. "The type of things that the team that are arriving are going to be doing is coordinating with other organisations; the UN, other British agencies and finding out what they're doing.

"We're making sure we're not replicating or duplicating our efforts, making sure we cover as much of Haiti as possible.

"They are saying this is catastrophic. They are talking about this in apocalyptic terms. They've never seen anything as bad as this."

As soon as last week's earthquake struck, aid agencies from the UK began deploying teams to the country.

There are more than 1,700 aid workers from more than 40 countries in Haiti.

Chris will be joining more than 40 of his colleagues already there.

He went to India after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001 and says he's been told to prepare for the worst, both physically and emotionally.

"It's really a case of getting there, getting on the ground and rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes," he said. "So you work 20 hour days and there's not much sleep.

"You just get your sleeves rolled up and do it because you have to. That's the nature of the work."