Haitian toll climbs to over 600.
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| Tue, 09-21-2004 - 10:23am |
More bodies are expected to be found as floodwaters recede.
http://www.iht.com/articles/539839.html
Bloated corpses and weeping relatives filled morgues as Haitians faced yet another tragedy in a year marked by revolts, military interventions and deadly floods. At least 622 were killed by Tropical Storm Jeanne and officials expect to find many more bodies.
The corpses of two children lay on a sidewalk Monday in Gonaïves, where one-third of the dead brought to the hospital were children. More than 500 people had died in the sprawling northern city, said Toussaint Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the UN mission.
Another 17 died in the nearby town of Terre Neuve, agriculture official Madiro Morilus said, and 56 bodies were found in the northern city of Port-de-Paix, according to Kongo-Doudou.
Dieufort Deslorges, a spokesman for the government civil protection agency, reported another 49 bodies recovered in other villages and towns, most in the northwest.
We expect to find dozens more bodies, especially in Gonaïves, as floodwaters recede," Deslorges said.
Tropical Storm Jeanne entered the Caribbean last week, killing seven people in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico before heading to the Dominican Republic, where it killed at least 18.
The toll is highest in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world where deforestation has made even light rain deadly. More than 90 percent of Haiti's trees have been chopped down, mostly to make charcoal. Without roots and foliage, there is nothing to hold water back from low-lying towns.
The world's first black republic and the only one to launch a successful rebellion against slavery, Haiti marked 200 years of independence amid political turmoil in January. A month later, a three-month rebellion ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and brought a U.S.-led military force. In May, disaster struck again with floods that killed more than 3,000 people on the Haitian-Dominican border on the island of Hispaniola.
Jeanne regained hurricane strength Monday, but was far out in the Atlantic, posing no threat to land.
"I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do," said Jesner Estimable, 35, who brought the body of his 2-year-old daughter to Argentinian peacekeepers Monday. Soldiers put the corpse in a body bag while her mother wailed. Another one of the couple's children was still missing. "All I have is complete despair and the clothes I'm wearing," he said, pointing to a floral dress and ripped pants borrowed from a neighbor.
In Gonaïves, a city of about a quarter million people, residents waded through ankle-deep mud outside the mayor's office, where workers were shoveling out mud and doctors treated the wounded. Aid workers were helping a woman give birth.
Floodwaters destroyed homes and crops in the Artibonite region that is Haiti's breadbasket, and turned roads into torrential rivers up to three meters, or 10 feet, deep.
Katya Silme, 18, said her family spent the night in a tree because their house was flooded. "Now we have nothing. We have not eaten anything since the floods," said Silme.
Argentine troops said they helped treat 140 injured, most for cuts to feet and legs. Officials said another 500 were treated Monday at city hall, where doctors, nurses and medication are urgently needed.
Three trucks carrying Red Cross relief supplies rolled in Monday, but two were mobbed by people who grabbed blankets and towels. UN troops stood by watching. Only one truck arrived intact with tents.
One man stood outside the flooded base used by Argentine troops, asking soldiers to remove 11 bodies that were floating in his house, including four brothers and a sister.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Haiti%20Jeanne
Thursday, September 23, 2004 · Last updated 8:42 a.m. PT
Haiti storm death toll could reach 2,000
By AMY BRACKEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GONAIVES, Haiti -- Workers dug new mass graves for corpses that still littered this flood-ravaged city Thursday as the death toll from Tropical Storm Jeanne rose to more than 1,070 and residents grew increasingly agitated from a lack of food and drinkable water.
Health workers feared an epidemic from the unburied bodies, raw sewage in drinking water and infections from injuries. About 250,000 were left homeless in Haiti's northwest province, which includes the port of Gonaives, from the weekend storm.
Officials say the death toll could reach 2,000, with more than 1,250 reported missing and presumed washed out to sea, buried in mud or floating in houses still inaccessible to rescuers.
Survivors who spent the night crammed into schools, churches and on rooftops slogged through contaminated, ankle-deep mud in Gonaives, where more bodies lay unclaimed in waterlogged fields. Residents held limes to their noses against the stench of the bodies and overflowing latrines.
"There are so many bodies, you smell them but you don't see them," said farmer Louise Roland. She said her rice and corn field was under water so she walked miles to town to try to get food.
Aid workers feared that waterborne diseases could erupt.
"It's a critical situation in terms of epidemics, because of the bodies still in the streets, because people are drinking dirty water and scores are getting injuries from debris - huge cuts that are getting infected," said Francoise Gruloos, Haiti director for the U.N. Children's Fund.
Martine Vice-Aimee, an 18-year-old mother of two whose home was destroyed, said people already were falling ill.
"People are getting sick from the water, they're walking in it, their skin is getting itchy and rashes. The water they're drinking is giving them stomach aches."
Limited distribution by aid workers left most people still hungry and thirsty.
Gruloos said some residents were marooned on the roofs of homes surrounded by water and mud, scared to climb down into the filth. People defecated on sidewalks.
The government's civil protection agency said more than 900 people have been treated, most for cuts and gashes. But the main General Hospital was out of commission, medical supplies were running out, and some aid trucks couldn't reach Gonaives because part of the road was washed away.
Trucks dumped up to 200 bodies into a mass grave at sunset Wednesday, but hundreds more were piled up outside morgues without electricity, awaiting burial.
There was no funeral ceremony when the bodies were dumped into a 14-foot-deep hole at sunset Wednesday. Dozens of bystanders shrieked and told officials to collect nearby unburied bodies.
"We're demanding they come and take the bodies from our fields. Dogs are eating them," said bystander Jean Lebrun.
Only a couple dozen bodies have been identified, and nobody was taking count at the Bois Marchand cemetery - the only one in the city not under water.
"We can only drink the water people died in," the 35-year-old farmer said, citing a lack of potable water six days after the storm's passage.
Dieufort Deslorges, spokesman for the government's civil protection agency, said the confirmed death toll rose to 1,072, with 1,013 bodies recovered in Gonaives alone by Wednesday.
Aid agencies have dry food stocked in Gonaives, but few have the means to cook. Food for the Poor, based in Deerfield, Fla., said its truckloads of relief were unable to reach the city Wednesday. Troops from the Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping forcing were ferrying in some supplies by helicopter.
Peacekeepers fired into the air Wednesday to keep a crowd at bay as aid workers handed out loaves of bread - the first food in days for some.
"The situation is not getting better because people have been without food or water for three or four days," said Hans Havik, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The federation appealed for $3.3 million to fund relief operations to 40,000 Haitian victims, and several nations were sending help.
Forecasters said Jeanne - now a 100 mph hurricane - appeared set to do a loop over the Atlantic and zero in on the northwest and central islands of the Bahamas and then the southeast U.S. coast, with Florida firmly in its sights.
At 5 a.m. EDT, Jeanne was centered about 475 miles east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. It was moving west near 5 mph, a speed that would bring it near Florida by Sunday.
The Bahamian government posted a tropical storm watch for the central islands, including Cat Islands, the Exumas, Long Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador.
Jeanne's rain-laden system proved deadly in Haiti, where more than 98 percent of the land is deforested and torrents of water and mudslides smashed down denuded hills and into the city. Floodwater lines on buildings went up to 10 feet high.
Last week, Jeanne also killed seven people in Puerto Rico and at least 19 in Dominican Republic. The overall death toll for the Caribbean was at least 1,098.
The disaster follows devastating floods in May, along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, which left 1,191 dead and 1,484 missing in Haiti and 395 dead and 274 missing on the Dominican side. The countries share the island of Hispaniola.
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On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Weather Underground storm site: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical
I could guess that the lace of an infrastructure is the primary reason. I could further say that the US efforts to enforce a regeime on Haiti this year helped the situations.