Sparks lit up the night as workers used heavy-duty saws to cut through tangled steel and concrete in an attempt to reach up to eight people believed to have entered the damaged Caribbean Market building before it came crashing down on Tuesday.

Rescuers earlier thought they had detected at least one person alive inside, and at one point asked for silence so they could listen for survivors using ultra-sensitive listening equipment.

But after an almost six hour search they said there were no signs of life, and began to leave the site.

The collapse occurred as a private contractor was recovering the bodies of those killed in last month's quake. Their bodies were placed nearby and covered in white sheets.

The five-story building was popular with well-off Haitians and was the capital's largest supermarket. It was badly damaged in the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, but remained partly standing.

Site supervisor Meir Vaknin said the building further collapsed as he was operating an excavator trying to remove bodies trapped inside by the original quake.

"There were looters inside the building," Vaknin told AFP. "I was trying to get rid of them when the building fell."

At least two dozen rescue workers were at the scene. US soldiers and UN police had sealed off the area.

The collapse came after the relief effort was dealt a potential new blow when the World Health Organization stopped giving free drugs to private clinics and NGOs after reports patients were being charged.

This followed distressing scenes of hungry survivors rubbing their bellies and shouting desperately on Monday after the UN suspended food supplies to some 10,000 quake survivors in the capital when fake coupons were discovered.

A WHO spokeswoman stressed that the new rules would allow the UN's health agency to keep a closer watch over its drug stocks.

Meanwhile, doctors treating a frail Haitian man said they believed he survived 27 days buried in rubble after the quake, but there was no explanation of how.

The rescued man, named as Evans Monsigrace, told doctors at a University of Miami field hospital in Port-au-Prince that he had been buried by the quake while cooking rice.

"Amazingly he got out after 27 days. It's amazing and we are proud to have him here," said Dushyantha Jayaweera, the chief medical officer at the center.

It was not immediately possible to verify Monsigrace's claim and there was no explanation for how he survived so long if he was trapped under the rubble without water.

The emaciated survivor was rushed to the hospital Monday and treated for dehydration, Jayaweera said.

According to the man's mother, people clearing debris discovered him and alerted Monsigrace's brothers.

International rescue teams have rescued some 135 people from the rubble since the earthquake struck.

The last person rescued in Haiti was a 16-year-old girl pulled out almost two weeks ago.

Angelina Jolie injected Hollywood star power into the relief work, touring the refuge caring for the children at the center of a US kidnap case.

The center is caring for 33 children that 10 US missionaries have been charged with kidnapping after they attempted to drive them to the neighboring Dominican Republic on a bus.

The case has slowed the evacuation of injured children because pilots are now reluctant to fly to Haiti to pick them up for fear their paper work will not be in order, a coordinator of the medical evacuations said.

Haitians whose children wound up with the American group told the judge handling the case on Tuesday that they gave the missionaries permission through a Haitian pastor to take them, the Americans' lawyer said.

One man, who did not want to give his name, said before entering the hearing that he had handed his 15-year-old son over because the boy had "fractured his foot in the earthquake" and needed treatment.

The Americans were arrested on January 29 and charged last week with kidnapping and conspiracy. They have claimed they had no ill-intent and thought the children were orphans.

arb-burs/ch/jm

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