Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- The U.S. price tag for relief in Haiti has hit $170 million, the federal government announced Thursday as ton after ton of relief supplies headed into the island nation through a crucial reopened pier.



The vast majority of the committed federal aid -- $140 million -- is from the U.S. Agency for International Development under the State Department, according to the Office of Management and Budget.



And the need within Haiti -- still reeling from last week's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake -- only grows by the minute. After days of being closed to much needed food and supplies, the south pier at Port-au-Prince was channeling aid into the leveled capital city. The supplies were brought into Port-au-Prince on trucks traveling on a repaired gravel road leading from the port.



Sidewalks were crowded with street vendors and kiosks and many small food stores were open. Dozens of stalls at a dusty market sold fruits and vegetables along a pocked and rut-filled dirt side street. A smaller market on a street corner saw some business.



However, the longest and most visible lines in Haiti's capital were not for food, water or gas -- they were for money. Earthquake survivors need cash and are waiting hours outside wire transfer businesses, including Western Union, that are starting to reopen.



"I have not eaten for two days," said 32-year-old Anderson Bellegarde, who waited more than six hours outside a money-wiring branch. "I'm only drinking water."



Meanwhile, a Dutch Navy ship, the Pelikaan, was docked at the city's south pier Thursday, unloading 90 tons of humanitarian aid. Two other ships had previously offloaded containers.



The reopened pier is older and smaller than the north pier, which was rendered unusable by the January 12 earthquake. The south pier was damaged, but Haiti port authorities and the U.S. military were able to put it back in adequate shape. Workers also repaired the road leading into the city and laid gravel on it.



Unloading of aid, however, was a slow process. The road allows only for one-way traffic, meaning a truck drives to the end of the pier, is loaded with supplies, and then drives out. Also, because of concerns about overloading the pier, only one truck is allowed on it at a time.



Repairs on the pier continue, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Gibbs. "We're working on it. We've got a long ways to go. ... If we lose this pier, that's it. We can't bring in anything."



However, the reopening of the pier and the repairing of the road represented a major development in efforts to get aid to earthquake victims, in that ships can carry much more cargo than air airplanes.



Authorities hope to get two-way traffic going on the pier by Friday, which would speed up the process.



A 5.9-magnitude aftershock Wednesday stopped efforts at the pier for about three hours. U.S. Navy divers had to go back in the water and reassess the pier's structural integrity, officials said. There was no immediate word if two less intense aftershocks Thursday, measured at magnitude 4.9 and 4.8, also caused a delay.



Full coverage  |  Twitter updates



Lt. Gen. Douglas Fraser of U.S. Southern Command announced the pier's reopening on Thursday in Washington. Officials hope to move about 150 containers of aid Thursday and 250 on Friday. They want to increase that to 800 containers a day.



The reopening comes as U.S. officials have been stung by criticism of aid efforts in recent days.



Some of that criticism has been leveled by aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders, who blamed five victims' deaths on delays, saying several flights carrying medical supplies had been diverted from the Port-au-Prince airport into the neighboring Dominican Republic.



Working under adverse conditions with limited supplies, medical teams have been forced to improvise.



List of missing, found in Haiti | Are you there? | Impact Your World



Renzo Fricke, field coordinator for Doctors
how much tons of humanitarian aid unloads? What nationality was the ship? What nationality was the ship unloading humanitarian? What allows more supplies in? Where are planes with medical supplies going?
90 Dutch Dutch the south pier at Port-au-Prince Haiti
question: how much tons of humanitarian aid unloads?, answer: 90 | question: What nationality was the ship?, answer: Dutch | question: What nationality was the ship unloading humanitarian?, answer: Dutch | question: What allows more supplies in?, answer: the south pier at Port-au-Prince | question: Where are planes with medical supplies going?, answer: Haiti