With a total breakdown of law and order, the 2,000 police in Port-au-Prince are outnumbered by the 3,000 bandits who escaped from prison.

The UN has descibed the disaster as being "worse than the tsunami" as anarchy rules and a tidal wave of lawlessness has looters dragged through the streets and battered to death with staves, while others kill for a cardboard box to shelter under.

Despairingly, one week on, the aid still isn't getting through. The living lie next to the dead, starving to death, and looters scavenge for food and water.

The haunting images of death, destruction and complete chaos are beyond belief. And as we watch helplessly, the horrors are equalled by the urgent need to give whatever we can. The total amount raised in Britain by the Disaster Emergency Committe Haiti Appeal has passed £15m.

And just as in search-and-rescue, the tragedy is the food and medicine isn't there – resources piled high at the airport, three million desperate for help but still untouched by it.

Last week my greatest fear was that there wouldn't be the outpouring of cash as there was when the tsunami hit Thailand, a country Brits had been to and knew.

Never in my worst imaginings did I think the aid wouldn't get through to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, dubbed the Island of the Damned.

The world hasn't failed in sending aid. This country had nothing before the quake – 70 per cent live on less than £1.20 a day and half unemployed – and no infrastructure.

Now it's the worst place on the planet.

Haiti is only known to us because of infamous Papa Doc Duvalier, a former doctor who murdered 100,000 people and formed a private army of killers, the Tonton Macoute, wearing their trademark mirrored sunglasses and designer T-shirts.

This is the latest in the deadliest of tragedies that have devastated Haiti – hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. It's hard to believe this is happening in the 21st century.

Their great need is so urgent and compelling, the Echo has teamed up with the British Red Cross, which has released £200,000 from its disaster fund, to ensure money is immediately available for the disaster response.

While it is crucial that we donate and pray that aid gets through, the only hope for these traumatised people is that they are not failed in the future as they have been down the decades.

Haiti, truly the worst place on earth, is beyond desperation as we know it.

The rescue package of hope lies in flattening what is left and rebuilding a country that has been failed for centuries, struggling with crippling debt, exploitation, corruption and violence.

Let us hope this tragedy gives Haiti the chance to throw off its shackles of all that is evil and good prevail mightily in bringing a country back from the bowels of Hell.