Panic and fear as Haiti death toll heads for 2,000

Panic erupted in storm ravaged Haiti today as increasingly desperate survivors of the mud and flood disaster burned tyres in protest and even attacked each other to get to scarce supplies of food and water.

With the death toll heading towards at least 2,000 – more than 1,100 known dead and 1,250 missing – workers struggled to bury victims of tropical storm Jeanne six days after it struck.

In the worst-hit city of Gonaives, hundreds of hungry and thirsty residents, many with nowhere to live, pushed through a wooden barrier to crowd into the sole working clinic for treatment, but only one doctor was there.

Some people had grown so desperate to get rid of putrefying corpses they were burying them in their backyards.

Health workers feared an epidemic from the unburied bodies and animal carcasses, overflowing sewage, lack of drinking water and infections from injuries.

The government’s civil protection agency said more than 900 people have been treated, most for gashes from fallen zinc roofs. Medics from United Nations peacekeeping troops in Gonaives have helped treat the injured.

The port city’s main General Hospital remains out of commission – knee-deep in mud which, according to nurses, hides the bodies of dozens of patients.

Medical supplies are running out and some aid trucks were unable to reach to Gonaives because the road was washed away in parts with others routes blocked by mudslides.

About 250,000 were left homeless in Haiti’s northwest province, which includes the port of Gonaives.

The United States government will provide more than two million dollars (£1.1million) in immediate disaster relief to Haiti’s flood victims in the coming days, USAID spokesman Jose Fuentes said.

“We were saved from the floods but now my baby is sick,” said Marilucie Fortune, 30, who gave birth to a son in a slum at the weekend, as Jeanne pounded the city with its torrential rains for some 30 hours.

Workers today dug new mass graves for bodies that still litter the mud-caked city. Many corpses remain trapped in collapsed homes or floating in floodwaters which are still ran knee-deep in some places.

“There are so many bodies, you smell them but you don’t see them,” said farmer Louise Roland, who like many held a lime to her nose to mask the stench.

In the seaside slum of Carenage, people were burying bodies of unidentified victims in their yards.

That could cause yet another health hazard since bodies easily could be forced up from shallow seaside graves.

“We need surgical masks, water and food,” said Frantz Bernier, who was burning tires to protest the lack of government help. “We don’t have anything.”

Police erected barbed wire around their station today after people fired shots at it overnight. Officer Louis Francois said they feared attack by about 20 escaped inmates who escaped from jail during the storm.

Most of the city’s police officers were left homeless by the floods and were handicapped because they only had one working vehicle.

Their helplessness enraged residents who have started throwing rocks at the few riot police the government sent in to help.

Aid workers fear an eruption of waterborne diseases, especially diarrhoea and cholera.

Peacekeepers fired into the air on Wednesday to keep a crowd at bay as aid workers handed out loaves of bread – the first food in days for some.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies have appealed for 3.3 million dollars (£1.8million) to fund relief operations.

Jeanne’s rain-laden system proved deadly in Haiti, where more than 98% of the land is deforested and torrents of water and mudslides smashed down denuded hills and into the city. Floodwater lines on buildings went up to 10 feet high.