Nearly half a million people have fled Port-au-Prince for the Haitian countryside following the devastating earthquake that destroyed the capital, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 90 percent of the people leaving the capital for rural areas were staying with relatives, and supporting these host families was now a priority.
Prices of basic commodities such as rice and sugar are rising as a result of the influx of people, the UN said, and medical centres are short of stock and equipment for emergency care.
"The government has revised the number of people leaving Port-au-Prince for outlying departments to 482,349 people, as of 31 January," the UN body said.
The Haitian authorities, which have laid on bus services to evacuate people from the capital, had previously said that 235,000 had sought refuge in the countryside.
The population in the South, Grand Anse, Nippes regions, all to the west of Port-au-Prince, and Central Plateau to the north, has swollen by 15 to 20 percent following the earthquake, according to the UN's Stabilization Mission in Haiti.
The 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12 destroyed Port-au-Prince and killed around 170,000 people.
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