Race to get emergency aid to Caribbean flood victims
Saturday, May 29, 2004
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): International
rescuers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic raced Friday to deliver aid to
victims of flooding that killed at least 958 people, amid fears the toll would
sharply rise. A UN spokeswoman said there
were 1,500 dead or missing in Haiti alone. Worries were widespread that
epidemics could follow in the two countries on Hispaniola island in the
Caribbean. US and Canadian members of a
multi-national military force in Haiti resumed helicopter flights to stricken
towns on Friday, a US spokesman said. Bad weather prevented flights Thursday.
UN relief agencies and non-governmental groups tried to fly food, water and
medical supplies to the worst-hit towns of Mapou Belle-Anse and Fonds Verettes.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan said 12 to 14 helicopter
flights would take food and water to the two towns, where hundreds of
inhabitants were swept away by rivers in the early hours of Monday.
Spain announced it will deliver 30 tonnes of material next week, while the UN
development mission in the Dominican Republic will donate about 750,000
dollars for people who have lost their homes.
Emergency relief teams are still struggling, however, to get to the worst-hit
villages, which are underneath as many as three meters (10 feet) of water,
said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs in Geneva (OCHA).
"We have about 1,500 people dead or missing
(in Haiti), but this is a toll that may rise," said the spokeswoman.
The official toll in the Dominican Republic was 379 dead and at least 352
missing, mainly in the devastated town of Jimani. In Haiti, the official death
toll stands at 579 with 74 missing. At least
272 people were reported dead in Mapou Belle-Anse and at least 100 in the
Grand Gosier area. Another 165 died in Fonds Verettes. Many of the missing
were in the Grand Gosier district. A European
Union representative in Haiti, Rachid Karoum, who flew over Mapou by
helicopter said the town was isolated at the bottom of a basin that had been
completely flooded by the rain. "The water is
four to six feet deep and the survivors have used boats to retrieve
decomposing bodies that are still under the water," he said.
Spanish State Secretary for Cooperation Leire Pajin said her country would ask
the EU to provide reconstruction aid to the two countries.
Helicopters spread disinfectant over the devastated Dominican Republic town of
Jimani to prevent the spread of disease. "The
most important task is to remove the corpses because there is a risk of
epidemics starting," the OCHA spokeswoman said in Geneva.
Many of the dead have been buried in mass graves.
Hundreds of rescuers, firefighters and the Red Cross dug into mud-covered
homes and streets looking for survivors, although hopes dimmed on the fifth
day after the floods. With more rain expected
the Dominican authorities warned people to stay away from low-lying areas near
rivers and valleys. More than 32,000
residents have moved out of Jimani, where some 340 people died , on the border
with Haiti, some 175 miles west of Santo Domingo.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell promised help to cope with
the devastation. "We are deeply concerned
about the destruction and loss of life that has taken place in the Dominican
Republic and in Haiti as a result of recent rains which have produced
mudslides, and we are in touch with both governments," Powell said.
"Fortunately, we had some military forces -- as did Canada and France, Chile
and other nations -- in Haiti that were providing peacekeeping activities,
(and) can now also be used for humanitarian rescue operations," Powell added.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the US ambassadors in both
countries had "declared disasters and invoked their power to provide 50,000
dollars to assist in disaster response."
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