Haiti: 'Stench of death'

2004-09-22 07:18

Gonaives - Bodies lay in growing piles outside morgues as United Nations peacekeepers planned the first major distribution of food and water on Wednesday in this city devastated by floods that tore apart families and left hungry crowds that have mobbed truckloads of aid.

The death toll from deluges unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne climbed to the more than 700, Haitian officials said Tuesday, with more than 600 of them in Gonaives alone. More than 1 000 others were declared missing.

Carcasses of pigs, goats and dogs still floated in muddy waters slowly receding from the streets in Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city with around 250 000 people. Not a house escaped damage.

Flies buzzed around bloated corpses piled high at the city's three morgues. The electricity was off, and the stench of death hung over the city.

'The water had taken her'

Destilor Aldajus, a 50-year-old farmer, said he and his six children climbed onto their roof to escape the floods. But he was at the morgue looking for his wife.

"I couldn't find her, but I knew the water had taken her," he said.

"We're going to start burying people in mass graves," said Toussaint Kongo-Doudou, a spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

As they waited, survivors exchanged tales. "Everyone in my neighbourhood who survived had climbed a tree," Corvil said.

Waterlines up to 3m high on Gonaives' buildings marked the worst of the storm that sent torrents of water and mudslides down denuded hills, destroying homes and crops.

Dieufort Deslorges, spokesperson for Haiti's civil protection agency, said he expected the death toll to rise as reports come in from outlying villages and rescuers dig through mudslides and rubble.

Deslorges said rescue workers reported recovering 691 bodies - about 600 of them in Gonaives and more than 40 in northern Port-de-Paix.

"Certainly there are more than 700 dead, certainly there are dozens more dead," Deslorges said. "It appears many were swept away to the sea, there are bodies still buried in mud and rubble, or floating in water, and that's not to mention the hundreds who are missing and the places we have not yet been able to reach."

Poorest nation

Around 1 056 people were missing, almost all from Gonaives, Deslorges said.

Gonaives had no electricity Tuesday night. Only a handful of buildings were lit and hotels packed with displaced people were in darkness because they had run out of fuel for generators.

Eight helicopters from a Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping force shuttled shipments of water, food and supplies to Gonaives on Tuesday.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. Floods here are particularly devastating because the countryside is almost completely deforested.

Interim President Boniface Alexandre pleaded for urgent emergency help at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Several nations sent aid.

- AP