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Rescuers could hear knocking and finally managed to free the trapped man

A 24-year-old man has been rescued alive from the rubble of a ruined hotel in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, 11 days after the earthquake.

It came hours after Haiti's government declared a formal end to the search for survivors.

Onlookers cheered as Wismond Exantus - smiling and apparently in a good condition - emerged on a stretcher from what remains of the Napoli Inn Hotel.

He later told reporters that soft drinks and snacks had kept him going.

"I survived by drinking Coca-Cola and I ate some little tiny things," Mr Exantus, who worked in the hotel's grocery store, told news agency AFP from his bed in a French field hospital.

"Every night I thought about the revelation that I would survive," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press agency.

Greek, French and US rescue teams were involved in the two-and-a-half-hour operation to bring him out of the remains of the hotel.

A French rescue worker, Lt Col Christophe Renou, described his survival as "a miracle".

He said rescuers - who had been alerted by the man's family - had managed to get water to him while they worked to dig him out.

Lt Col Renou said the man had probably been helped by the fact that the 5-6m (16-20ft) of debris above him was largely wood, rather than concrete.

He said the man had told his rescuers that another four people were trapped with him but that they had stopped moving a couple of days ago.

The BBC's Adam Mynott, in Port-au-Prince, says some Haitians have questioned the announcement that search-and-rescue operations are to end - and the discovery of Mr Exantus will have lent weight to their argument.

Drank his own urine

Speaking before Mr Exantus's rescue, UN spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs in Geneva said the decision to end the search for survivors was "heartbreaking" but that it had been taken on the advice of experts.

She said most search-and-rescue teams would now be leaving Haiti, although some with heavy lifting equipment might stay to help with the clean-up operation and with aid distribution.

Two people, an 84-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man, were pulled alive from the rubble in Port-au-Prince on Friday.

The woman, who was found in the wreckage of her home seriously injured and severely dehydrated, was taken to the main city hospital for treatment.

The 21-year-old man, Emmannuel Buso, was rescued by an Israeli search team and is said to be in a stable condition.

Speaking from his hospital bed, he described how he had had no food, and had drunk his own urine to keep thirst at bay.

An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitude quake, which some have estimated has killed as many as 200,000 people.

At least 75,000 bodies have so far been buried in mass graves, Haiti's government has said. Many more remain uncollected in the streets.

The UN says 130,000 people have now been relocated out of Port-au-Prince, easing the pressure on overcrowded camps in the city.

The BBC has started a new radio service in Creole, one of the country's main languages.

The 20-minute long daily broadcast, called Connexion Haiti, will try to give people up-to-date information about the basic services they need to survive - such as where to find food, clean drinking water, medical assistance and shelter.