An elite team of city cops and firefighters yesterday returned from Haiti after rescuing six people from the rubble of that nation's devastating earthquake.
Nearly 80 members of the team landed at Kennedy Airport just after 1 a.m., to applause from relatives and co-workers.
"It's good to be back," said firefighter Joe Downey. "It was a great experience and an extraordinary mission . . . We went there trying to make an impact, and we think we did."
The highlight came last week, when the team pulled an 8-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister from the wreckage of a three-story supermarket.
found amid rubble. Above, Navy Lt. Aron Boney treats student Yolande Sylvarin.
"It was humbling, in a way," Downey said of the weeklong mission. "We were in a different area every day, and every area was poorer than the last. The devastation is unimaginable."
The team's return came as another aftershock struck Haiti's capital, causing no new casualties.
Meanwhile, truckers filling mass graves reported that more than 150,000 victims had been buried by the government.
"Nobody knows how many are buried in the rubble -- 200,000, 300,000?" said Haiti Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue. "Who knows the overall death toll?"
US officials said the 45 search-and-rescue teams that had flocked to the Caribbean from around the globe had pulled out 134 survivors since the Jan. 12 disaster.
Downey said the New York rescuers spent their nights in tents -- first-class accommodations, considering that hundreds of thousands of survivors are homeless.
"People down there had little to start with and now have nothing," Downey said. "They're living in streets and parks. Very few are living in their homes."
The team is to brief Mayor Bloomberg today.
With Post Wire Services
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