Haiti is now just like New Orleans after Katrina... 'In pictures: Haiti relief'

Breeze54

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Sat Sep-06-08 03:05 PM
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Haiti is now just like New Orleans after Katrina... 'In pictures: Haiti relief'

Edited on Sat Sep-06-08 03:12 PM by Breeze54

Several hundred thousand people are in need of food and water in Haiti,
after tropical storm Hanna dumped massive amounts of rain on the country.

Gonaives, the worst hit city, remains mostly under water,
hindering aid convoys in their efforts to deliver food.

Many thousands of people were forced to seek refuge on
rooftops and balconies after the port city was submerged.

Help is arriving in the area, with UN troops picking
people from rooftops and distributing some food.

Relief agencies say as many as 600,000 people throughout the country need assistance.

Safe drinking water is in short supply, and carcasses
from drowned farm animals are strewn in the floodwaters.

After Hanna, Haitian city went days without aid

http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/784616.html

By JONATHAN M. KATZ

Saturday, Sep 6, 2008

The Associated Press:

The first aid arrived Friday in Gonaives, Haiti, four days after Tropical Storm Hanna hit.

GONAIVES, Haiti -

Annette Benjamin tried to wait out the storm in her modest home.

But when the floods came, the walls collapsed around her.

Neighbors pulled the 53-year-old to safety, but everything she owned was gone.

For the next four days, Benjamin waded through the stinking river Rue Cristophe had become,
trying not to step on the bodies buried in the muck. She was among tens of thousands desperately
searching for food and clean water in a city of 160,000 that had less and less of both.

Help finally arrived Friday in the form of a giant container ship delivering the first aid to Gonaives
since Tropical Storm Hanna hit. One of Benjamin’s daughters, a policewoman, had arranged for her
to catch a ride to the capital on the ship’s way back.

“I almost died. My house is destroyed. I lost everything,” Benjamin said. “I cannot stay
in Gonaives anymore, because they say the storms are going to return again.”

Indeed, Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 3 storm, was swirling in the Atlantic with 120-mph
winds, and forecasters said it would almost certainly bring more rain to the region over the weekend.

Any rain at all would be disastrous to Gonaives, which was half-drowned by Tropical Storm Hanna on Monday. The storm killed at least 137 people in Haiti — including 102 in the Gonaives area — but the death toll was rising as floodwaters receded and revealed bloated corpses amid the mud. More than 54,000 people are in shelters.

More than 10,000 people have left Gonaives on foot, swimming and wading through floodwaters and heading for the next town about 45 miles to the south, said Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of Food for the Poor.

“The exodus out of Gonaives is massive,” he said.

Guarded by Argentine peacekeepers brandishing assault rifles, the rusty container ship Trois Rivieres docked Friday at a remote private port away from the city, apparently because of fears the sight of so much food could trigger a riot.

The U.N. planned to distribute the high-energy biscuits and water to emergency shelters where 40,000 people were marooned and increasingly desperate.

Max Cocsi, who directs Belgium’s mission in Haiti of Doctors Without Borders, noted it would take little rain to compound the disaster because the soil is already saturated and rivers are overflowing from three tropical storms in less than three weeks. The two earlier storms — Fay and Gustav — killed at least 96 other Haitians.

“We don’t need a hurricane — a storm would be enough,” he said.

The flow of aid
International aid groups providing relief to Haiti following Hanna say donating money, rather than material goods, is the best way to help. Details of some of the aid operations here:

•UNITED STATES: A U.S. plane from Miami delivered $250,000 in relief supplies, enough for 20,000 people to Port-au-Prince, much of it brought to Gonaives by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and two helicopters for distribution Friday. Another $100,000 on the way, U.S. Embassy said.

•UNITED NATIONS: U.N. World Food Program sent a ship with 33 tons of relief supplies to Gonaives. Setting up a distribution center. To give, visit www.wfp.org.

•INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS: Dispatching aid and assessing situation. Launched appeal for $3.4 million. To give, visit www.icrc.org.