23270: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Jeanne (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   GONAIVES, Sept 25 (AP) -- A thunderstorm drenched homeless people living
on rooftops and sidewalks early Saturday, adding to the woes of Tropical
Storm Jeanne's survivors who have been looting aid trucks and mobbing food
distribution centers in desperation over the slow pace of relief.
   Officials said they recovered at least 1,180 bodies of those killed in
last weekend's floods and expected to find hundreds more in mud and
collapsed houses. More than 1,200 people remained missing, most of them in
Gonaives and presumed dead. An estimated 300,000 Haitians were homeless.
   With gang members trying to steal food out of the hands of people at aid
centers, 140 Uruguayan soldiers were on their way to reinforce about 600
U.N. peacekeepers already in this hard-hit city, said Toussaint
Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the U.N. mission.
   "Security is one of our major concerns," he said.
   Officials said gangsters had forced their way into distribution centers
and stolen food. Kongo-Doudou said troops had been able to chase them away
without violence.
   A U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator, Eric Mouillesarine, said people
were mobbing relief workers and "there's nothing we can do."
   U.N. troops from Argentina fired smoke grenades Friday when about 500
men, women and children tried to break into a schoolyard where CARE
International was handing out grain and water to an orderly line of women.
The sunburned, unwashed flood victims returned in surges once the air
cleared.
   The director of the World Food Program's Haiti operation, Guy Gavreau,
said Friday that aid groups had been able to get food to only about 25,000
people this week -- one-tenth of Gonaives' population.
   During the night, lightning bolts lit the sky above blacked-out
Gonaives, thunderclaps exploded and sheets of rain lashed the thousands
living on the street and on concrete roofs of flooded homes.
   The rain cleared up Saturday morning, but floodwaters rose again in some
mud-coated areas of the city that had dried out in the week since Jeanne
struck.
   Some people said they hoped to evacuate the city.
   "If one person gets sick, we'll all be sick," said Ysemarie Saint-Louis,
who spent the night on her roof with more than 30 relatives who crowded
under a small tin shelter during the thunderstorm. When the rain let up,
they went back to sleep on wet mattresses and blankets.
   Saint-Louis said she and the others hoped to go elsewhere in Haiti, such
as the capital, Port-au-Prince, but she wasn't sure where.
   Genevieve Montaguere, a nun from Guadeloupe, said relief deliveries were
being limited to women because gangsters had bullied their way in earlier
to make sure that only their buddies got food.
   The strongest gang, the Cannibal Army, began a rebellion here in
February that quickly was joined by soldiers of Haiti's disbanded army and
led to the February ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The rebels
refuse to disarm, keeping the country unstable.
   It was unclear which gangs were causing trouble, Kongo-Doudou said. "The
city is just filled with gangs."
   The thunderstorm hit as floodwaters finally were beginning to recede in
Gonaives, where mud contaminated by overflowing sewage was forming a crust.
People tried to fight the stench by holding limes or kerchiefs to their
noses.
   Kongo-Doudou said a team of specialists would begin to clean up the
contamination. "We have to prevent the spread of diseases," he said, adding
that the United Nations would be making an urgent appeal for more emergency
aid from the world's nations.
   A truck carrying relief supplies from the Church of God was attacked
Friday when it entered Gonaives. People jumped on the moving truck, pried
open the doors and threw out boxes of supplies.
   U.N. peacekeepers shoved people off the truck and then escorted it to
the mud-caked camp of Argentine troops, who stood guard as church members
threw out bananas, bottles of cooking oil and secondhand clothing. A
stampede erupted, with people diving into mud to grab what they could.
   Planeloads of relief supplies from several nations and aid groups have
arrived in Port-au-Prince, but delivery has been delayed by damaged roads
and security fears.
   Aid trucks must ford floodwaters and mudslides on National Route 1,
likely to be more hazardous after the new rains. At least three trucks were
mired in ditches along the road Friday.
   Chilean troops in the Brazilian-led U.N. force were ferrying in supplies
by helicopter, but not enough.
   The floods from Jeanne destroyed all of the rice and fruit harvest in
the Artibonite, Haiti's breadbasket, "so now the country can't even feed
itself without outside help," said Gavreau, the World Food Program
official.
   The crisis was only the latest tragedy in Haiti, a country of 8 million
people that has suffered 30 coups. Last weekend's storm was worsened by
Haiti's nearly total deforestation, which left valleys surrounding Gonaives
unable to hold water dumped during some 30 hours of pounding by Jeanne.
   Before it hit Haiti, Jeanne lashed neighboring Dominican Republic, where
the death toll rose to 24 on Friday after rescue workers discovered five
bodies crushed in a collapsed cave near the northern tourist town of
Samana. Jeanne also killed seven people in Puerto Rico, making the overall
Caribbean death toll at least 1,211.
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   On the Net:
   National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
   Weather Underground storm site: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical