Haitian death tolls (2)

It is really difficult to do science in difficult circumstances, and unfortunately the question of how many people, exactly, have died as a result of the 2010 Haitian earthquake is a scientific question. Here are a few links:

• Haiti Death Toll Ticking Up Every Moment
• Haiti death toll to reach tens of thousands, Hillary Clinton warns
• 100,000 feared dead in horrific Haiti quake
• Red Cross: 3M Haitians Affected by Quake
• Obama, Bush and Clinton launch Haiti aid appeal (Reuters)
  
• 2010 Haiti earthquake (Wikipedia)
  

The numbers are still kind of round, and vary from 50 000 to 220 000. At the risk of sounding cynical, I am tempted to be skeptical about any numbers coming from official government sources, and would be more inclined to believe numbers coming from a non-governmental organization with the capacity to collect numbers from many areas. The numbers in the article citing the Red Cross are really soft; it says three million affected, tens of thousands dead.

The 200 000 number seems to have come from a comparison to the 2004 South Asian Tsunami, but has otherwise been pulled out of thin air.