By JONATHAN M. KATZ (AP)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5idZiVQhHcyG1gpBjzXaAmmk4_OtAD9F3PT7G0

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitians scuf­fled at gas pumps and waited for hours at fill­ing sta­tions Thurs­day as the quake-ravaged coun­try strug­gled with fuel short­ages caused by a delayed ship­ment from Venezuela.

Dri­vers chased rumors of avail­able gaso­line across the hills of the rubble-filled cap­i­tal. Some aban­doned their cars to carry empty milk jugs, soda bot­tles and buck­ets on foot to col­lect as much fuel as rationing sta­tion own­ers would allow them to buy.

The impov­er­ished Caribbean nation is depen­dent on imports to fuel cars, gen­er­a­tors and the intri­cately painted group taxis known as “tap-taps” that con­nect peo­ple to jobs, food and each other.

Hait­ian offi­cials tried to reas­sure cit­i­zens, telling them fuel would arrive Sun­day aboard the delayed Royal Dutch Shell-operated tanker, but that did lit­tle to soothe quake-rattled nerves.

“My home was destroyed and I’m try­ing to make money to feed my fam­ily,” said Bonel Jean, a 32-year-old tap-tap dri­ver wait­ing for hours under the beat­ing sun. “The gov­ern­ment is not tak­ing its respon­si­bil­ity to get us fuel on time.”

The country’s lim­ited fuel sup­ply is replen­ished twice a month by ship, much pro­vided under pref­er­en­tial terms by Venezuela’s Petro­Caribe pro­gram. The ship­ment sched­uled to arrive Tues­day was delayed dur­ing an inter­me­di­ate stop in the east­ern Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda.

With few reserves on hand, dis­trib­u­tors clamped down and lim­ited cus­tomers to about five gal­lons at a time. Gas sold for about $5 a gal­lon ($1.30 a liter) in the cap­i­tal Thurs­day, a typ­i­cal price in the fuel-starved country.

Finance Min­is­ter Ronald Baudin said the gov­ern­ment has autho­rized gaso­line com­pa­nies to import from the neigh­bor­ing Domini­can Repub­lic — which also suf­fers from fuel short­ages — but acknowl­edged “the dis­tri­b­u­tion is a lit­tle slow.”

Baudin told The Asso­ci­ated Press that offi­cials are try­ing to set up a three-month sup­ply of fuel to act as a “buffer” in case of future delays.

A senior offi­cial with the United Nations mis­sion in Haiti said earth­quake relief efforts have not been affected because the inter­na­tional body and human­i­tar­ian groups have reserves to last through the weekend.

But if the ship­ment does not arrive by Sun­day, the gaso­line short­age will become crit­i­cal, said the offi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

Short­ages like this are com­mon in Haiti. Fuel sup­plies were com­pletely cut off after the Jan. 12 earth­quake destroyed the port and wrecked fuel lines, cre­at­ing a thriv­ing black mar­ket of pirated fuel sold directly from trucks and bro­ken tanks.

Asso­ci­ated Press writ­ers Evens Sanon and Frank Bajak con­tributed to this story.