Haiti population booming

Haiti's population will continue to grow quickly despite the tremendous loss of life in the January earthquake, according to United States Census Bureau estimates released Monday.

The bureau estimates Haiti's current population at 9.6 million, based on an estimated quake death toll of 230,000.

It projects the impoverished country will recover and surpass its pre-quake population level by 2012.

By 2050, the bureau said, Haiti will have 13.4 million people.

The Dominican Republic, with a nearly identical population, is expected to keep up the same pace. By contrast, the populations of now-similarly sized European countries like Sweden and Belarus are expected to decline over the same period.

Overcrowding is already blamed by aid workers and experts for many of Haiti's woes, from environmental degredation and hunger to the deaths of thousands crushed by stacked concrete homes during the earthquake.

The figures were published in the census bureau's online International Data Base, with estimates and projections for 226 other countries and areas.