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Haiti
Haiti braces for storm as officials fear quake death toll
could rise

Tom Phillips and Jean Daniel Delone in Port-au-Prince and Karen McVeigh
Mon 16 Aug 2021 22.15 BST

Medical teams and aid workers were racing to save lives and provide food and
shelter on Monday amid fears that the official death toll from Saturday’s earthquake
could rise further and a tropical depression bore down on the crisis-stricken
Caribbean country.

The official death toll rose on Monday to 1,419, and at least 6,000 were injured by
the 7.2-magnitude quake – a tremor even more powerful than the 7.0-magnitude
earthquake that killed more than 200,000 Haitians in 2010 and levelled much of
Port-au-Prince.

Far fewer lives have been lost this time, because the epicentre was further from the
densely populated capital.

But rescue workers said on Monday that conditions on the ground in Haiti’s
southern peninsula, where the earthquake struck, were dire, and likely to get worse
after tropical depression Grace makes landfall in coming hours.
By midday on Monday, heavy rain was already lashing the capital, Port-au-Prince,
and flash floods and mudslides were expected to affect road travel.

Reuters said projections from the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) indicated
that Grace, which is expected to hit Haiti between Monday night and Tuesday
morning, could pass over areas directly affected by the earthquake and douse them
with up to 38cm (15in) of rain, bringing the risk of flash floods and landslides.

“We need to get prepared. It’s going to bring a lot of flooding … and it’s going to
hamper rescue efforts,” warned Jean William Pape, a prominent Haitian doctor who
is involved in the earthquake response.

Tropical storm Grace is expected to hit Haiti after it was struck at the weekend
by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake

Cuba Guantanamo

Potential track
of tropical storm
Grace
Haiti Dominican
Republic
Port-au-
Prince
11am
Tuesday
Santo
Jamaica
11pm Domingo
Kingston Monday
11am
Monday
Storm’s path Epicentre of
likely to stay 14 August
within shaded area earthquake
Caribbean Sea
100 km
100 miles

Guardian graphic. Source: NOAA. Data as of 11am EDT

One of the worst-hit towns is Les Cayes, a seaport about 120 miles southwest of the
capital, which has about 100,000 residents.

Sterens Yppolyte, a medical intern at the Les Cayes’ Immaculate Conception

hospital, said its doctors were struggling to cope with the influx of injured patients
from the town and, increasingly, the rural area around it.

“The emergency room is full and the yard is full,” Yppolyte said on Monday. “We are
fighting.”
The 26-year-old trainee doctor said the patients being brought in included children
and elderly people, many of whom had suffered fractured legs or arms and head
trauma injuries from falling debris. “You do what you can – but there are not enough
orthopaedic doctors.”

Compounding the crisis, two of the hospital’s medical students were killed when
the house they were in collapsed after the quake.

Yppolyte, who unsuccessfully tried to extricate his colleagues from the rubble, said
the situation outside the hospital gates was also desperate.

“People are in need. There is no water in the town, no food. They are sleeping
outside,” he said. “Haiti needs the world and its prayers. People are really scared.”

Civil defence authorities say at least 13,000 houses were destroyed by the quake and
nearly 6,000 people wounded.

On Monday, USAid (the United States Agency for International Development) said
its urban search-and-rescue teams were being flown into Les Cayes by helicopter,
with sniffers dogs trained to locate trapped victims in fallen buildings.

“Right now people are traumatised because they don’t know what will happen in
the coming hours, days or weeks,” said Thomas Jean Verlin, a 31-year-old teacher
from Les Cayes. “There is a lot of panic. I believe 90% of the population needs
psychological assistance.”

Akim Kikonda, an aid worker from Catholic Relief Services, an NGO which operates
in Les Cayes and in Jeremie, said they were distributing tarpaulins to people
sleeping on the streets.

“After the earthquake, there were a dozen aftershocks, so houses that were not
completely destroyed have been seriously damaged. People are not comfortable
being inside, so they are sleeping outside.”

Alessandra Giudiceandrea, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières, said the
charity had three small teams in the south, including in Les Cayes and Grand Anse,
where they had a surgeon and anaesthetist. They were also dealing with patients in
Port-au-Prince, who had travelled north for treatment.

“The rain has already started in Port-au-Prince,” she said on Monday. “The best we
can say is that movement by air and road will be slower. Buildings have collapsed,
and we are operating out of tents. We just have to hope the tents will withstand the
wind.”
But security is another major challenge, after months of political turmoil which
have left gangs in control of key routes, Giudiceandrea said.

“Here, we have it all, the security situation, the epidemic, natural catastrophe. Let’s
cross our fingers that this is the last … I’ve been here in the past, I know this country
and what I will say that is that the Haitians’ capacity to respond – even when they
themselves are the victims – is great.”

When Saturday’s earthquake struck, Haiti was already reeling

from profound social, economic, political and security crises, which reached a
terrible crescendo on 7 July with the murder of its president.

Nearly six weeks after that brazen assault on the presidential residence – allegedly
carried out by a team of retired Colombian soldiers – few believe the true
masterminds have been identified, let alone caught. There are growing doubts over
whether a general election, scheduled for early November, will go ahead.

“Haiti is just in incredibly dire straits,” said Jonathan M Katz, an American journalist
who covered Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and wrote a book about the mishandled
international response.

Even before the assassination, Haiti had effectively been “a country without a
government”, Katz said.

Now, Haitians had little choice but to face the crisis by drawing on their “seemingly
endless reservoirs of self-reliance and solidarity … it really is a mess”.

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