The
death toll — which government officials said
stood at 312 people in four tropical storms in
less than a month — is sure to rise as more
bodies surface in the mud.
Two
more bodies were found Monday in coastal
Cabaret, where 60 people died as mudslides and
floods unleashed by a swollen river crushed
homes in the middle of the night. Sixteen other
people — mostly children reported missing by
their parents — were being searched for in the
wreckage, Cabaret civil defense director Henri
Louis Praviel said.
And
there was still no word Monday on Ike's death
toll in other cities, let alone more remote
areas.
Unidentifiable corpses buried
In Gonaives, Police Commissioner
Ernst Dorfeuille said his poorly equipped force
— just 15 officers and three police cars for the
city of 160,000 — has buried dozens of badly
decomposed and unidentifiable corpses in graves
outside the city.
"After
three days, those bodies could not stay," said
Dorfeuille, adding he witnessed the burial of
five people.
It
wasn't clear how these bodies fit with previous
tallies of the dead, but Dorfeuille denied
reports citing him as giving a death toll of
nearly 500 in Gonaives.
Lines
of storm refugees trudged down from denuded
hills Monday to the wreckage of their homes and
stores.
"They
told me it was destroyed but I wanted to see for
myself," said Evos Chyot, who slogged through
water up to her thighs to find her corner shop
filled with black mud and debris.
Broken
pews were scattered across the mud-smeared floor
of the Gonaives cathedral, where about 50 people
now live in the choir balcony. They gathered
around a small cooking pot, stirring some goat
meat and cornmeal to share
Meanwhile, inmates at the city's jail clamored
for deliverance from the overpowering stench of
filth and sewage, and supplies for jail staff
and U.N. peacekeepers as well as the 224 inmates
were perilously low, said Dr. Manvoor Ahmad, a
Pakistani member of the U.N. mission.
All
across the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation,
desperation was evident.
"People are starting to move back because they
have nowhere to go," U.N. development of
ficial Eric Mouillefarine said Monday. "They
want to protect their homes from looters."
The
USS Kearsarge arrived in Port-au-Prince Monday
after it was rerouted from a humanitarian
mission to Colombia, and it can provide much of
the logistical support aid groups have needed.
Eight helicopters and three landing craft aboard
the ship will deliver cargo and equipment to six
cities all along Haiti's coast.
"We
moved as quickly as possible to get here,
following the passing of Hurricane Ike, and we
are rapidly moving to distribute relief supplies
to the citizens of Haiti," said the mission's
commander, Capt. Fernandez Ponds.
U.S.
Navy distributes aid
The Navy helicopters were flying
over storm-stricken areas on Monday, trying to
find places where bigger helicopters can land
with supplies. And the landing craft can carry
up to 199 tons of supplies to places where even
the helicopters can't land, U.S. Embassy
spokeswoman Mari Tolliver said.
The
Kearsage also has four operating rooms and 53
hospital beds, she said.
International aid groups warn of a secondary
disaster caused by water-borne illnesses and
other problems in the days and weeks ahead, and
have appealed for donations to sustain a lengthy
response in the storm-ravaged country.
Haiti's "rice bowl," a farming area in the
Artibonite Valley, was flooded in the storms and
further threatened Sunday when authorities were
forced to open an overflowing dam.
Simply finding and feeding the survivors was the
immediate concern. There are two main land
routes between the capital and Gonaives — one,
along the coast, was wiped out by floods, and
the other, through the central mountains, was
cut off by the collapse of the Mirebalais bridge
on Sunday.
Peacekeepers have beefed up security to maintain
order. Bolivian troops in riot gear had to
subdue hundreds of people in a line of 3,000
that snaked around a warehouse in Gonaives to
get water and high-protein biscuits on Sunday.
The
situation was calmer Monday in the southern city
of Jacmel, where a U.S. Navy helicopter
delivered rice, beans and cooking oil from the
World Food Program to 110 children at the Haiti
Gospel Mission orphanage.
"My
garden was destroyed," said Yv Ospier, whose
orphanage usually depends on food shipments the
U.S. government and Catholic Services. "My food
is finished. My boss told me to see if there
were any Americans coming and ask them for
help."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26612168/displaymode/1176/rstry/26612079/
Our
Mission