However, by Monday one-half of the 60 rescue workers were back in Belgium after it became clear that the chances of finding more living victims had severely diminished. The team saved a total of three people of the 70 or so found so far under rubble.

The earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, struck near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 12 January and was followed by two major after-shocks. The Red Cross has estimated that three million people may be affected. Rescue teams face the problem of an almost total lack of infrastructure as already dilapidated buildings, utilities and roads are now useless.

Many hospitals collapsed during the earthquake, and medical supplies were urgently needed. The BFast team carry a full field hospital. As well as the victims of the quake itself, aid workers will soon be faced with the possibility of the spread of disease as bodies accumulate.

Accompanying the B-Fast team was a medical team led by Luc Beaucourt, an emergency medicine specialist based at Antwerp University. The next day, a team from the Flemish Red Cross also left for Portau- Prince, where the UN, itself having been seriously hit by the earthquake, is coordinating relief efforts.

The B-Fast team was criticised in some quarters, the broadcaster CNN reported, after it was forced to pack up its equipment and leave its field hospital and patients alone. The team stressed it was acting under the orders of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, which said it could not guarantee the team’s safety.

Unlike some other aid workers on the ground, the Belgian team was not accompanied by its own security contingent and was in danger of being looting for equipment, medicine and even water. A detail of 34 military personnel left Melsbroek air base on Sunday to provide security for the remaining B-Fast members and for diplomatic staff still in Haiti.

Also on the inbound flight were about 40 Belgian civilians living in Haiti, among them some aid workers. The civilians asked to be repatriated for fear of possible disease or an increase in violence.

Aid organisations receiving donations to assist with the relief effort include the Red Cross at account number 000-0006566-67 (mention “Haiti aardbeving”) and 12-12, a joint operation of five organisations, including Handicap International and UNICEF Belgium, account number 000-0000012-12.

• In related news, it was revealed last week that Belgium gave a record amount of €1.3 billion last year in development aid, or the equivalent of €150 for every man, woman and child in the country. The sum means Belgium has met its target of donating 0.7% of GDP in aid some 40 years after the undertaking was first signed in the UN. Belgium is now ranked as one of the top six aid donors in the world: only the Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway did as well or better.

However, some aid organisations said the government had used “accounting tricks” to inflate the sum donated, such as writing off old debts from the Congo, which were no longer expected to be paid in any case. “A fine gesture, were it not for the fact that the debts only existed in theory,” said Bogdan Vanden Berghe of the charity 11.11.11.