At the Haitian embassy Wednesday night, people were crammed into the gorgeous lobby, hugging and crying and talking, so many that the crowd swirled halfway up the grand, sweeping staircase.

It started as a candlelight vigil, society’s autopilot ritual when people in mourning just don’t know what else to do but gather with others to try to divide the sorrow.

But this one had an energy and an urgency I hadn’t seen before. The long, white things repeatedly being handed to everyone weren’t candles.

They were strips of paper with a message: “HAITI needs your help. Text ‘HAITI’ to ‘90999′ to donate $10 to the Red Cross. Text ‘Yele’ to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti,” the earthquake relief fund run by hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean.

An instant cure for that nagging feeling of helplessness we often get when we see something horrible unfold before us.

With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the presidential palace, a string of ministries and the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, Haiti faces a dangerous vacuum in security and government.

“Please give to Haiti. Do you have the number? Just send a text — that’s all you have to do,” said the tall, handsome young man who handed me my first paper.

Many in the capital Port-au-Prince picked away at shattered buildings with bare hands, sticks and hammers hoping to find loved-ones alive. Thousands of homeless people began to set up their own camps anywhere they could, the biggest right opposite the collapsed presidential palace.

“Look at us. Who is helping us? Right now, nobody,” said Jean Malesta, a 19-year-old student who was the only survivor when her apartment building collapsed from the powerful quake that has killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands.

She and a dozen others lay under a tent they had set up in the park opposite President Rene Preval’s palace. His weak and under-resourced government appears totally unequipped to handle the crisis, its officials in disarray and nowhere to be seen.

Pickup trucks stacked high with bodies could be seen making their way through traffic-clogged streets on Thursday morning, on their way to drop off the dead at the morgue attached to Hospital General, the city’s main health facility.

But Guy LaRoche, the hospital’s director, said it was already filled to overflowing with more than 1,500 rapidly decomposing bodies. Many had been left lying out in the sun. LaRoche said he had had no contact with any government officials to see what to do with them.