23204: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Jeanne (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   GONAIVES, Sept 21 (AP) -- Blood swirled in knee-deep floodwaters as
workers stacked bodies outside the hospital morgue Tuesday. Carcasses of
pigs, goats and dogs and pieces of smashed furniture floated in muddy
streams that once were the streets of this battered city. Desperate people
swarmed a truck delivering water.
   The death toll across Haiti from the weekend deluges brought by Tropical
Storm Jeanne rose to 691, with 600 of them in Gonaives, and officials said
they expected to find more dead and estimated tens of thousands of people
were homeless.
   Waterlines up to 10 feet high on Gonaives' buildings marked the worst of
the storm that sent water gushing down denuded hills, destroying homes and
crops in the Artibonite region that is Haiti's breadbasket.
   Floodwaters receded, but half of Haiti's third-largest city was still
swamped with contaminated water up to two feet deep four days after Jeanne
passed. Not a house in the city of 250,000 people escaped damage. The
homeless sloshed through the streets carrying belongings on their heads,
while people with houses that still had roofs tried to dry scavenged
clothes.
   "We're going to start burying people in mass graves," said Toussaint
Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti. Some
victims were buried Monday.
   Flies buzzed around bloated corpses piled high at the city's three
morgues, where the electricity was off as temperatures reached into the
90s.
   Only about 30 of the 250 bodies at the morgue of the flood-damaged
General Hospital hade been identified, said Dr. Daniel Rubens of the
International Red Cross. Many of the dead there were children.
   "I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do," said Jean Estimable,
whose 2-year-old daughter was killed and another of his five children was
missing and presumed dead.
   Dieufort Deslorges, spokesman for the civil protection agency, said he
expected the death toll to rise as reports came in from outlying villages
and estimated a quarter million Haitians had been made homeless.
   More than 1,000 people were missing, said Raoul Elysee, head of the
Haitian Red Cross, which was trying desperately to find doctors to help.
The international aid group CARE said 85 of its 200 workers in Gonaives
were unaccounted for.
   "It's really catastrophic. We're still discovering bodies," said
Francoise Gruloos of the U.N. Children's Fund.
   Brazilian and Jordanian troops in the U.N. peacekeeping mission sent to
stabilize Haiti after rebels ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in
February struggled to help the needy as aid workers ferried supplies of
water and food to victims.
   CARE spokesman Rick Perera said the agency had about 660 tons of dry
food in Gonaives, including corn-soy blend, dried lentils and cooking oil
and was trying to set up distribution points.
   Police said aid vehicles were being waylaid by mobs on the outskirts of
Gonaives. One truck that made it to City Hall in the town center was
swarmed by people who began throwing its load of bagged water into the
crowd, setting off a melee. The driver finally sped off, bouncing people
off the truck.
   Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Haiti's interim
president, Boniface Alexandre, pleaded for help.
   "In the face of this tragedy ... I appeal urgently for the solidarity of
the international community so it may once again support the government in
the framework of emergency assistance," he said.
   The European Union sent $1.8 million in urgent aid, to be distributed by
the Red Cross and other aid agencies, according to EU Development
Commissioner Poul Nielson.
   Venezuela's government is sending $1 million as well as a boat loaded
with food, water, tents and a rescue squad, Venezuelan Information Minister
Andres Izarra said.
   On Monday, the U.S. Embassy announced $60,000 in immediate relief aid,
an amount criticized as "a drop in the bucket" by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek,
D-Fla., whose district includes some of the Miami area's Haitian community.
   "The government of Haiti is totally unequipped and unable to deal with
this massive crisis, because they have neither the resources nor the
organization," Meek said in a statement. "Private voluntary groups are
reportedly overwhelmed by the enormity of this crisis."
   Floods are particularly devastating in Haiti, the poorest country in the
Americas, because it is almost completely deforested, leaving few roots to
hold back rushing waters or mudslides. Most of the trees have been chopped
down to make charcoal for cooking.
   Jeanne came four months after devastating floods along Haiti's southern
border with the Dominican Republic. Some 1,700 bodies were recovered and
1,600 more were presumed dead.
   Gonaives also suffered fighting during the February rebellion that led
to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left an estimated 300
dead.
   All this in a year supposed to be dedicated to celebrating the 200th
anniversary of the country's independence from France. Haiti, the only
country to launch a successful rebellion against slavery, was the world's
first black republic.
   Two days after lashing Haiti, Jeanne regained hurricane strength over
the Atlantic on Monday but posed no immediate threat to land. The storm
entered the Caribbean last week, killing seven people in Puerto Rico before
heading to the Dominican Republic, where it killed at least 19, including
12 who drowned Monday in swollen rivers. The overall death toll was 717.
   Jeanne, with winds that reached hurricane strength Friday but weakened
to 70 mph as it lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti, was about 485
miles east of Great Abaco island in the Bahamas on Tuesday.
   Hurricane Karl's 125 mph winds were no danger to land as the storm
stayed out in the Atlantic Ocean about 1,005 miles east-northeast of the
Leeward Islands. Tropical Storm Lisa, with winds of 60 mph, was about 1,055
miles west of the West African island of Cape Verde.
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   On the Net:
   National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
   Weather Underground storm site: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical