22127: erzilidanto: . Grief as Haitians and Dominicans Tally Flood Toll (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

.  Grief as Haitians and Dominicans Tally Flood Toll

>

> May 28, 2004

>  By TIM WEINER and LYDIA POLGREEN

>

>

> SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, May 27 - Aid workers,

> soldiers and villagers struggled to save the living, find

> the lost and bury the dead in Haiti and the Dominican

> Republic on Thursday after floods that took everything in

> their path.

>

> "We have nothing left," said Socorro Moquete, a 67-year-old

> grandmother in Jimaní, the most devastated town in the

> Dominican Republic. "The river took everything, even the

> dead in the cemetery."

>

> Burials have been rough and rapid, and many hundreds of

> people remained missing three days after the spring rains

> made the rivers run wild. An accurate assessment of the

> death and damage may take days.

>

> Government officials in both nations said the confirmed

> death toll from the devastating floods reached nearly 900

> on Thursday. But they said it might go as high as 2,000,

> with the greatest losses in Haiti, making it one of the

> worst natural disasters in Caribbean history.

>

> The death counts remain estimates from officials citing

> conflicting and sometimes second-hand information. They

> stood as high as 1,660 or more in Haiti, according to some

> government officials, and were confirmed at more than 300

> in the Dominican Republic.

>

> A total of at least 11,200 families, probably more, have

> been displaced by the flood in both nations, Red Cross

> workers here said. Thousands of homes and shanties have

> been destroyed in villages so poor and isolated that no one

> is exactly sure how many people lived there before the

> flood.

>

> Two weeks of heavy rains, which continued Thursday, became

> a deadly torrent at dawn on Monday. In Haiti, as much as

> five feet fell in 36 hours on the town of Fond Verrettes,

> in a valley about 40 miles east of the capital,

> Port-au-Prince, officials said.

>

> The rains washed away villages and hamlets clinging to the

> deforested hills along the border separating the two

> nations, which share the island of Hispaniola in the

> Caribbean.

>

> The death toll was so high, in part, because almost all the

> trees on those hills are gone, and the soil is eroded,

> leaving no natural barrier for the annual spring rains. The

> trees have been cut for charcoal, the only product with

> much market value in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's

> poorest nation.

>

> The two hardest-hit areas in Haiti are in and around Fond

> Verrettes, where hundreds are dead and missing, and in and

> around Mapou, to the southeast, where at least 280 people

> are dead and as many as 1,000 are feared to have died,

> according to conflicting accounts given by Haitian

> officials.

>

> International aid workers are still trying to reach towns

> and villages in Haiti's southeast, including Bodarie,

> Thiotte and Grand Gosier. Margareth Martin, the Haitian

> government's representative for the southeast region,

> placed the death toll in the Mapou area at 1,000 and said

> that rescue efforts were nearly impossible there because

> the roads were impassable.

>

> Prime Minister Gérard Latortue planned to leave Haiti on

> Thursday for a summit meeting of Latin American and

> European Union nations in Guadalajara, Mexico, after

> blaming deforestation for the magnitude of the disaster and

> promising to create a forest protection unit made up of

> former soldiers of the demobilized Haitian Army.

>

> Just across the border in the Dominican Republic, more than

> 300 people are dead and 375 still missing in and around the

> town of Jimaní, where the river burst its banks at dawn

> Monday, washed away hundreds of homes, killed cattle,

> destroyed crops and displaced more than 1,000 families,

> according to Dominican and Red Cross officials.

>

> Jimaní residents and local authorities said the death toll

> might be higher, fearing that many people were buried under

> the mud or had been washed down to Lago Enriquillo, a lake

> about 19 miles to the southeast.

>

> Jimaní was a town of about 15,000. Now its diminished

> population is seeking those who were lost, along with food,

> drinking water and clothing.

>

> What was the La Cuarenta neighborhood, its poorest area, is

> now mud, rocks, branches and debris. Largely inhabited by

> Haitians, it had been built in a riverbed that had been dry

> for years.

>

> La Cuarenta had several hundred small houses. All have been

> washed away. Those who lived there are dead or missing.

>

> "The river took my daughter and two granddaughters," said

> Altagracia Recio, 54. "I lost everything."

>

> The Dominican Republic's president, Hipólito Mejía, flew to

> Jimaní on Thursday for the first time since the disaster.

> So did the United States ambassador, Hans H. Hertell, who

> said, "This situation is grim, and we're looking at ways to

> get more money here."

>

> Promised aid to the victims includes $50,000 from the

> United States, $42,000 from Canada, $100,000 from Japan and

> $2.43 million from the European Union.

>

> Family and local private aid has been faster than

> international relief. Trucks and buses have been traveling

> to Jimaní since Tuesday with contributions from schools,

> businesses and individuals.

>

> Jimaní was filled with "Haitians who had fled their

> country, many trying to make a living in a black market,

> selling second-hand clothes," said Cristina Estrada, a

> representative of the International Federation of Red Cross

> and Red Crescent Societies.

>

> The Dominican Republic is poor, with a per capita income of

> about $2,000 a year, but Haiti is far poorer. Its annual

> per capita income is roughly $400.

>

> And the floods in Haiti come at a difficult time, after an

> uprising that left more than 200 people dead and helped

> oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide this winter. A

> government cobbled together with the help of the United

> States remains nearly bankrupt, without many functioning

> agencies.

>

> Among those trying to aid the living are members of the

> American-led multinational military force that occupied

> Haiti after Mr. Aristide fled three months ago under

> pressure from rebels and the United States government.

>

> Lt. Col. David Lapan, a spokesman for the multinational

> force, said United States marines had been flying

> helicopters to Fond Verrettes and Mapou, in the

> southeastern region of Haiti, for several days, ferrying

> drinking water, food and plastic sheeting to shelter

> thousands of people left homeless by the flooding.

>

> Mapou, he and others reported, is gone. The town lay in a

> valley now under as much as 10 feet of water rimmed by mud

> and rubble.

>

> "In Fond Verrettes, they used what little flat land they

> had in the middle of this valley, which is what was

> flooded," Colonel Lapan said. "A flash flood rolled through

> the area, took what had been a dry streambed and expanded

> it by a few hundred meters and took everything in its path,

> and either swept it downstream or buried it right there."

>

> The forecast called for more rain Friday, which could

> hamper efforts to deliver relief supplies. Using about half

> a dozen Marine helicopters, the interim force delivered

> about 18,000 liters of water and 500 boxes of fruit and

> bread, but flights may have to halt because of downpours,

> Colonel Lapan said.

>

> The roads between Port-au-Prince and the worst-off towns

> remained impassable, making helicopters the only way to

> transport food, water and shelter.

>

> Officials at the United Nations World Food Program in Haiti

> said they were struggling to get enough food for an

> estimated 15,000 people who had to flee their homes.

>

> "We are trying to react as quickly as possible," said Iñigo

> Álvarez-Miranda, a spokesman for the food program in

> Port-au-Prince. "Even before this we were already operating

> in a country in a deep crisis."

>

> The program feeds 500,000 of Haiti's 8 million people. The

> country's man-made misery has grown since the revolt that

> toppled Mr. Aristide, Mr. Álvarez said, and now this new

> natural disaster has deepened Haiti's despair.

>

> Tim Weiner reported from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,

> for this article, and Lydia Polgreen from New York.

> Jean-Michel Caroit contributed reporting from the Dominican

> Republic.

>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/international/americas/28CARI.html?

> ex=1086755612&ei=1&en=bfc7dbdba1fb5ac8


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