It is like the start of the apocalypse, a nightmare

cholera and other diseases will cause more deaths than the actual hurricane over the next days and weeks. We are talking about vulnerable people who have lost everything.

“They’ll not recover livelihoods or reach minimum survival conditions without more support.

“Damage wrought by Hurricane Matthew to roads and power lines in some areas is of the same magnitude to those after the 2010 earthquake.”

Eleven days after the hurricane, Haiti was last night a country on the edge.

The initial international aid effort – to which Britain is giving £5million – has been stepped up after initially being hampered by the lack of a usable airstrip large enough for cargo planes.

But with many roads still blocked and communications down in the worstaffected areas, the help is still struggling to get through to some areas, leading to anger and even violence. Earlier this week, 1,000 looters armed with stones, knives, ice-picks and hammers battled to grab T- shirts, bags, toys and any other items they could find in destroyed houses and shops on one street.

Aid trucks carrying water suppliespp as well as cars and jeeps belonging to charities and non-govgovernment organisationsns have been attacked by looters in recent dayss and some are now forced to travel in convoy under armed police guard – and only during daylight hours, as it iss too dangerous at night.

The people of Haiti ti – which had still not fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake, arthquake, which killed 200,000 – know from experience there will be no quick fix.

Yesterday, United Nations SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-Moon flew in to see