Haiti Copes With Storm Devastation; Deaths Pass 1,000 (Update1)

[seemslikeadream]

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Aid workers struggled to deliver food and supplies to survivors as the death toll in Haiti caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne reached at least 1,013, with 1,200 people missing, according to the United Nations.

Jeanne hit Haiti Sept. 17 and 18, flooding 80 percent of Gonaives, a northern coastal town with about 80,000 residents. The death toll could rise ``dramatically'' because several towns in northern Haiti are under water and inaccessible to emergency workers, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

``Big parts of Gonaives are under water, so the situation is still desperate,'' UN aid worker Anne Poulsen said in a telephone interview from Gonaives. ``There are many areas where people are hard to reach with supplies.

Poulsen said truck convoys from the capital of Port-au- Prince delivered 80 tons of rice, beans and oil, plus 10,000 loaves of bread in the past two days, and that five distribution centers have been set up in the town. A convoy with medical supply kits arrived today, she said.

Haiti, already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, must cope with the flood devastation on top of daily obstacles like corruption, drug trafficking, illiteracy and AIDS. Haiti's per capita income was $361 last year, unemployment is as high as 60 percent and the average Haitian's life expectancy is 53 years, according to the World Bank.

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=ajRIHVspW7Tk&refer=latin_america

[rocktivity]

1. Did they ever find that island that the UN helicopters couldn't?

:shrug:
rocknation

[FirstDoNoHarm]

2. Like Moveon.org said it's Bush and global warming doing this

Let's get Kerry/Edwards to point this fact out to Americans! It is Bush and his support of global warming that is causing all this bad weather.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

5. Subtle as a sledgehammer

:eyes:

[Piperay]

6. Chimp doesn't support global warming

to be exact he doesn't believe it exists.

[Cha]

3. Poor Haiti! So Sorry for

the People!

My friend's son was in the Peace Corp there until they were evacutated because of the coup.

[rainy]

4. all of the trees were chopped down for the sugar cane industry

in Haiti. The French colonists did this to grow sugar cane. Once the land of plenty, lots of mango and avocado, now can not even hold the rain because the soil is not fertile. Its the old Lorax story over and over again. Chop down the trees, rape the land and sink the people into poverty.