The confirmed death toll¹ from Haiti's devastating² earthquake has risen above 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince area alone, a government minister has said.

海地一位政府大臣称，仅太子港地区的确定死亡人数就达到了15万人。

Hundreds of Haitians joined open-air church services in the capital  

Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said the count was based on bodies collected in and around内部及周边 the capital by state company CNE.

Many more bodies remain uncounted under rubble碎石，碎砖 in the capital, including the towns of Jacmel and Leogane.

The search for survivors⁴ has officially ended and the focus has shifted to aid.

But there is disagreement about how well the aid operation is doing, with the head of Italy's civil protection service making highly critical comments.

Guido Bertolaso, who is in Haiti to co-ordinate relief efforts, also criticised what he saw as the presence of too many American soldiers.

He said they had no training in running a civilian⁵ relief救济，减轻 operation.

"When there is an emergency, it triggers a vanity虚荣心，浮华 parade. Lots of people go there anxious to show that their country is big and important, showing solidarity⁶", he said.

He called on the United Nations to establish a procedure to follow when major natural disasters occur.

As the death toll死亡人数 in Haiti has risen, it has become clear the 12 January quake is one of the worst natural disasters to have struck in recent years.

Some say the 7.0-magnitude quake killed as many as 200,000 people, while an estimated 1.5 million people have been left homeless.

Ms Lassegue said that the authorities were still far from knowing the total number of those killed.

"Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble³ - 200,000, 300,000? Who knows the overall death toll?" the Associated Press quotes her as saying on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters a day earlier, she said the general hospital had received about 10,000 corpses⁷, which it had handed over to CNE for burial.

At least 75,000 people have been buried in mass graves since the disaster. Relatives have also burnt the bodies of some of the victims.