Death, devastation in Haiti
2008-09-08 14:31
Haiti - The tips of gravestones jutted through the water as new victims from the fourth hurricane to hit Haiti in four weeks were dragged out of the floods.
Almost 55cm of water submerged the clay and straw houses in the village of L'Estere, the nearby corn fields had disappeared.
And into this scene of devastation, two school buses brought people from nearby Gonaives, the Haitian town bearing the brunt of the growing humanitarian disaster in the poorest country in the Americas.
"They're around 300 of us," said 24-year-old Denis Sanon, surrounded by a group of teenagers. "No one is looking after us, there's no water or food."
Sanon said he fled Gonaives after the hurricane induced floods rose above five-metres in some parts but his parents had stayed.
"I spoke to my father on the telephone this morning. He told me that he couldn't go out because of the wind and rain," he said.
Dozens of desperate, starving people waded through the muddy water from Gonaives, where hundreds have been killed in the series of storms. The town has barely got over Hurricane Jeanne, four years ago, in which 3 000 died.
'The water rose again this morning...'
Hurricane Ike battered Haiti on Sunday killing at least 47 people and taking the official toll from the hurricane month to around 600.
Many feared the toll will climb in the massive floods.
"The water rose again this morning after subsiding since Tuesday. And we're hungry," said Nicolas Jean-Charles on the flooded road in northern Haiti, lifting his T-shirt to point to a hollow stomach.
Rescuers and aid convoys have found bridges collapsed, homes washed away and crops ravaged.
"It's four times worse than Jeanne. Water didn't come this far then. And it rose again last night," said Pierre-Louis Nerilan, hosting four families whose houses had flooded from Gonaives.
Some 650 000 Haitians lost their homes or had to flee the floods, including 300 000 children.
Hundreds of bodies were found in Gonaives after a wall of water and mud engulfed the town.
Key bridge collapsed
The police commissioner in Gonaives told AFP that he only had around 50 officers struggling to help rescue efforts in the city of some 300 000.
"Usually there aren't enough police in this town. At the moment, we're simply overtaken by events," said Ernst Dorfeuille.
"Two Haitian police vehicles were swept away in floods, and water is coming in the police station too."
Local police struggled to cope in the first days of the catastrophe, before Argentinean soldiers from the UN peacekeeping force in the city were joined by reinforcements of heavy-duty vehicles and helicopters.
But help sent from the capital, Port-au-Prince, was blocked after a key bridge collapsed on Sunday.
The main road to Gonaives disappeared in an immense sandy-coloured lake.
And sheets of rain crashed down L'Estere and Gonaives.
Dorfeuille said police were still working around the clock, despite lacking food and supplies like the rest of the population, and looking after some 240 hungry prisoners in the local jail.
"I'm organising the police station, we're trying to keep our spirits up," he said.
- SAPA