29567: Hermantin(News)Rains leave destruction in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Nov. 27, 2006


HAITI
Rains leave destruction in Haiti
Heavy rains and the resulting floods and mudslides in Haiti's northern and 
southern peninsula left death, destruction and homelessness.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

At least four people are confirmed dead and 100 are newly homeless in Haiti 
after days of heavy rain soaked the Caribbean nation's southern and northern 
peninsula.

Haiti's Civil Protection Agency confirmed the deaths in Jérémie, a town along 
the country's southern peninsula, and is investigating reports of at least two 
people missing in the northwest, said Sophie Boutaud de la Combe, spokeswoman 
for the U.N. stabilization mission in Haiti.

''The floods are under control,'' Boutaud de la Combe said in a telephone 
interview.

In Jérémie the torrential downpour that began Wednesday night and continued 
well into Saturday, carried away homes and made roads impassable after 
mudslides and rocks choked the roadway.

HOSPITAL DAMAGED

The town's main hospital also was severely damaged, and 100 town residents had 
to be relocated to a shelter. As a result of severe soil erosion, brought on by 
deforestation, Haiti has long been vulnerable to flooding and mudslides.

''Up to now, we cannot give a final count on how many people have died,'' 
Jean-Claude Delizaire, an officer with the Haitian National Police in Jérémie 
said in a telephone interview. ``A lot of people are homeless.''

Delizaire and others say there doesn't appear to be any relief in sight from 
the rain, which continued up to Saturday evening. The General Hospital, which 
sits at the bottom of a hill, was severely damaged when the roof could no 
longer sustain the heavy rain and water began pouring in, flooding patients and 
surgical rooms.

Water also rushed into the hospital when a retaining wall outside the building 
collapsed.

''There was a lot of water, it was just rushing down,'' said Sister Maryann 
Berard, the administrator at the Haitian Health Foundation, a local charity 
group that sits atop of a hill overlooking the hospital. ``They had a couple of 
feet of water at the hospital.''

By the time an eight-member delegation from Haiti's parliament and the Ministry 
of Health arrived Friday afternoon to survey the damage, most of the water 
inside the hospital had been cleared away by members of the U.N. mission and 
the Haitian Red Cross.

In the northwest, torrential rain caused a river to overflow. The river flows 
through the center of Jean-Rabel, a small town on the northwest tip of Haiti 
and 23 miles west of Port-de-Paix. Homes in Port-de-Paix were also carried away 
by the floods.

Jean-Rabel's only morgue, a gift from the community, was washed away. So were 
several homes and the main beach, Bord-de-Mer, said Father Reginald Jean-Mary, 
the priest at Notre Dame d'Haiti Roman Catholic Church in Little Haiti.

WASHED AWAY

Jean-Mary, who is from Jean-Rabel, said he received an e-mail Friday morning 
from a local doctor informing him that the town had endured a lot of damage. On 
Sunday morning, Jean-Mary was finally able to get through to someone in his 
hometown who reconfirmed what the doctor had said.

''There is almost nothing left standing in the town,'' Jean-Mary said.

``The hospital is completely damaged. Many people are homeless and living in 
trees. People's plantations, their livelihood, have been ruined. Not a banana 
tree is left standing.''

He said he was told that at least one person, a woman, was killed when the wall 
of her house collapsed. Authorities have yet to confirm the death of another 
person reported missing from Port-de-Paix.

Two years ago, more than 3,000 people were killed near the city of Gonaives 
when Tropical Storm Jeanne soaked the area.

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