Haiti in crisis as Jeanne lashes Florida

RELIEF workers are warning of an epidemic of diseases such as malaria and tetanus in Haiti, as a humanitarian crisis mounts following devastating floods that killed 1,650 people and left 400,000 homeless.

Reports from the flood-ravaged city of Gonaives yesterday say many homes remain under water and many residents have not eaten for days.

UN peacekeepers and aid workers are struggling to distribute food and supplies throughout the country, but have been slowed by washed out roads and security concerns.

Meanwhile, hungry residents are continuing to riot and attempting to loot aid convoys.

A spokeswoman for the World Food Programme says enough food has been distributed for about 200,000 people, but she says this is only a small amount of what will be needed.

Flood waters and mud cascaded into the northern city of Gonaives and other parts of the north and north-west, leaving tens of thousands of people with nothing in the poorest country in the Americas.

Carl Murat Cantave, a Haitian government official, said the toll was now 1,650. The toll could rise well above 2,000 as more bodies are recovered from Gonaives, a port city of 200,000, and outlying areas.

Efforts to distribute food, water and other relief supplies have been hampered by security problems and a convoy of government trucks bringing aid was attacked by gunmen and people with machetes as it entered the city, officials said.

UN peacekeepers are in the city to protect food distribution centres and help with logistics. They are part of a Brazilian-led UN force sent to maintain order in the country after Aristide’s ousting.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Jeanne tore a fresh path of destruction as it marched up storm-ravaged Florida.

The fourth hurricane in six weeks shut down much of the state and prompted recovery plans on a scale never before seen in the nation.

Yesterday, the centre of the storm was over south-western Georgia, about 15 miles east-north-east of Albany. It was moving north at aboutnear 12mph and was expected to turn to the north-north-east and move over the Carolinas.

“This is the price we pay for living in paradise,” said Phyllis Cole, laughing at her predicament as she waited with about a dozen others on Monday on a promise that a Home Depot store in Stuart would reopen. Everyone wanted the same thing: a generator. None were in stock, but the manager thought some were on the way.

At least six people died in the storm as it ploughed across Florida’s midsection in a virtual re-run for many residents still trying to regroup from hurricanes that have crisscrossed the south-eastern US since mid-August.

Jeanne came ashore around midnight Saturday with 120 mph wind, striking the same area hit three weeks ago by Hurricane Frances and rocketing debris scattered by earlier storms.

Roofs were torn off, stop lights dangled precariously and bridges from the mainland to barrier islands were flooded. About 2.6 million homes and businesses were without power.

“Some people in Florida have been hit two or three times now by these hurricanes. They have to be miserable right now,” Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown said.

Jeanne had moved east of the Panhandle and remained at barely tropical storm strength as its centre moved over Georgia yesterday. It weakened into a tropical depression later in the day.