Storm, slow aid delivery deepen quake anguish
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Prime Minister Ariel Henry of Haiti on Monday promised a “tenfold” increase in rescue and aid efforts to the quake-ravaged southern peninsula of his country, as he privately expressed frustration to the U.S. ambassador at the slow rollout of help.
Henry’s public promise on Twitter and his private anger, conveyed in an internal State Department update shared with the New York Times, came as local and international aid agencies struggled to deploy medical help and search teams to the area about 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital.
The need to expedite help intensified as Tropical Depression Grace lashed Haiti and other Caribbean countries. The storm, which made landfall in Haiti on Monday, could dump enough heavy rain to cause possible mudslides and flooding in the quake zone, where hundreds of thousands of survivors are sleeping in the open.
The 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Saturday morning could not have come at a worse time for Haiti. The Caribbean nation is traumatized over the unsolved July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and is still recovering from the calamitous quake that destroyed much of the Port-au-Prince area in 2010. Severe poverty, systematic gang violence, the coronavirus pandemic and a history of dysfunctional government have only worsened the struggles of Haiti’s 11 million people.
The death toll rose Monday to at least 1,419, with hundreds missing and thousands of injuries in an area that is bereft of medical resources in normal times.
The homes of as many as 1.5 million Haitians across the southern peninsula are structurally damaged, according to another internal U.S. government assessment.
Officials interviewed in and around Les Cayes, a city in Haiti’s southern peninsula badly affected by the quake, worried that the storm could bring disease and hunger, as the strong gusts of wind and rainfall further complicate and delay relief efforts.
But the destruction of churches across the southern peninsula may be the biggest blow to longer term support for Haitians in the affected area.
For many Haitians, churches have been the only source of aid throughout their lives, in the absence of strong government institutions. Many were in ruins after Saturday’s earthquake.
“Our church is destroyed and many churches in and around Les Cayes are destroyed, but we have faith and we know that as long as people are still here, we can build back our community,” said Rev. Yves Joel Jacqueline, who works at Les Cayes’ cathedral.
“In Les Cayes, we are the only thing here. There is no support from the government,” he added.