23191: (Chamberlain) Gonaives flooding (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   GONAIVES, Sept 20 (AP) -- Rescuers pulled bodies from floodwaters Monday
that raged through parts of Haiti's third-largest city, sweeping people
from their homes and forcing survivors to spend the night in trees, atop
cars and on rooftops following Tropical Storm Jeanne. The toll of 138 dead
was rising swiftly.
   At least 109 bodies were stacked in three morgues in the northwestern
city of Gonaives, many inside the flood-damaged General Hospital.
Government officials reported at least 29 deaths elsewhere and said they
expected more.
   Two days after lashing Haiti, Jeanne regained hurricane strength over
the open Atlantic east of the Bahamas, posing no immediate threat to land
and heading away from the mainland United States.
   In Gonaives, a city of about a quarter million, people waded Monday
through ankle-deep mud outside the mayor's office, where workers were
shoveling out mud and doctors treated the wounded. Aid workers were aiding
a woman giving birth in one room.
   Smashed pieces of concrete walls littered the ground, a school bus was
split against a utility pole, and waterlines up to 10-feet high showed the
passage of the storm waters, which turned some roads into fast-flowing
rivers.
   Floodwaters destroyed homes and crops from corn to onions in the
Artibonite region that is Haiti's breadbasket.
   A base housing Argentine peacekeepers also was flooded except for a
helicopter landing zone.
   Katya Silme, 18, said she, her mother and six siblings spent the night
in a tree because their house was flooded.
   "The river destroyed my house completely, and now we have nothing. We
have not eaten anything since the floods" said Silme.
   She said she saw neighbors swept away in the waters Saturday.
   Nearby two dead children lay on a porch, their faces covered with
cloths.
   Ronald Jean-Marie, 38, said the waters tore down the concrete walls of
his home in Raboteau slum and his neighbors, a woman and her two young
children, disappeared into the fast-moving current. "I don't know how it
happened, but neighbors said the water came and they just vanished."
   The storm came four months after devastating floods along the southern
border of Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic. Some 1,700 bodies were
recovered then and 1,600 more were missing and presumed dead.
   This time, floods tore through northwestern Gonaives and surrounding
areas, forcing hundreds from their homes. With nowhere to turn, some
families spent nights on their flat concrete roofs surrounded by bundles of
belongings, and some slept on top of car hoods.
   Floodwaters also left destruction and at least 24 dead in the
northwestern town of Chansolme, civil protection director Maria Alta
Jean-Baptiste said. She said at least four died in northwestern
Port-de-Paix and one elsewhere in the south.
   Floods are particularly devastating in Haiti, the poorest country in the
Americas with 8 million people, because it is almost completely deforested,
leaving few roots to hold back rushing waters or mudslides.
   Gonaives, where some homes were entirely engulfed by floods, also
suffered fighting during the February rebellion that led to the ouster of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left an estimated 300 dead.
   Argentine troops who are among more than 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers treated
at least 150 people injured by the floods in Gonaives, mostly for cuts on
feet and legs, said Lt. Cmdr. Emilio Vera.
   Hundreds more were injured, and some were being treated at City Hall,
where Mayor Calixte Valentin said doctors and nurses are urgently needed.
   Equipment including the X-ray machine was covered with mud at Gonaives'
General Hospital, said Dr. Pierre-Marie Dieudonne, a doctor with the
Catholic agency Caritas. He said there was a great need for antibiotics,
food and water.
   Three trucks carrying Red Cross relief supplies from tents to blankets
rolled in Monday, but two were mobbed by people who grabbed blankets and
towels. U.N. troops stood by watching. Only one truck arrived intact with
tents at the mayor's office.
   People tripped over each other to grab tiny bags of water thrown from a
Red Cross truck in front of City Hall.
   "Everyone is desperate," said Pelissier Heber of the Artibonite Chamber
of Commerce. "The international community is not doing anything so there's
a general panic. The population is really mad because they were expecting
more from the United Nations."
   He said dozens of people have lost their businesses.
   Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue toured some flooded areas Sunday
and declared Gonaives a disaster area, calling for international aid. The
U.S. Embassy announced $60,000 in immediate relief.
   Tropical Storm Jeanne has been blamed for at least 152 deaths in the
Caribbean. Seven died earlier in the Dominican Republic, which it hit as a
hurricane. The seven deaths in Puerto Rico included some indirectly caused
by Jeanne, including a couple who breathed poisonous fumes from a power
generator.
   At 5 p.m. EDT, Jeanne was centered about 370 miles east-northeast of
Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, with winds near 85 mph, moving northeast
at about 7 mph.
   Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Lisa remained far out in
the Atlantic and were not immediate threats to land. Karl's sustained winds
diminished to 120 mph, making it a Category 3 hurricane. Lisa had winds of
60 mph.
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   On the Net:
   http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
   http://www.wunderground.com/tropical