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Dean: UN sends disaster teams
21/08/2007 16:41 - (SA)
Geneva - The United Nations said on Tuesday that it had sent two emergency teams to Jamaica and Belize to help organise relief efforts in the wake of hurricane Dean.
"We have sent UNDAC (UN Disaster Assessment and Co-ordination) teams to help authorities to co-ordinate assistance and ...to ease international aid," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian co-ordination office (OCHA).
"An UNDAC team was deployed in Jamaica, where a state of emergency has been declared in the south of the island, which is the hardest hit," she told journalists.
"There's also a five-strong UNDAC team in Belize."
Byrs said OCHA was ready to unlock funding from its standing emergency fund to help countries in the Caribbean struck by Dean, which has grown into a "potentially catastrophic" top-rated Category 5 hurricane.
Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico on Tuesday, lashing the Yucatan Peninsula with monstrous winds and driving rain, after gaining strength as it swept through the Caribbean.
Dean struck land on the border with Belize, where all the coastal areas and islands were placed on emergency footing.
In Jamaica, where one man died when his house caved in on him, residents were cleaning up one day after Dean's powerful inner wall narrowly brushed past the island, bringing down trees, power lines and flooding low-lying areas.
Dean earlier swirled past Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, lashing it with heavy rain and gale-force winds that left at least four people dead.
Two people were also killed in the French territory of Martinique and another two died in the Dominican Republic, while thousands of people across the region fled their homes.
- SAPA
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