Challenges piling up as aid flowing into hard-hit Haiti
LES CAYES, Haiti — Relief for the victims of a powerful earthquake and a tropical storm began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity and lack of basic infrastructure were still presenting huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.
Private relief supplies and shipments from the U.S. government and others were arriving in the southwestern peninsula where Saturday’s quake struck, killing more than 2,100 people.
But the need was extreme, made worse by the rain from Tropical Storm Grace, and people were growing frustrated with the slow pace.
Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, was closed Thursday for a two-day shutdown to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopedic surgeons.
The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster response efforts in the capital.
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency put the number of dead at 2,189, with 12,268 others injured. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the hard-hit small port city of Les Cayes.
The magnitude 7.2 earthquake damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.
The U.S. aid effort has been building since the initial hours after the earthquake.
On Thursday, 10 U.S. military helicopters ferried in search and rescue teams, medical workers and supplies that had been pre-positioned in Haiti by the U.S. Agency for International Development after the devastating 2010 earthquake.
A Norfolk, Va.-based naval ship, the USS Arlington, was expected to arrive this weekend, said Adm. Craig Faller, who oversees the military response as commander of Miamibased U.S. Southern Command. “We’ve got the momentum now,” he said.
The U.S. government is still working with Haitian authorities and others to determine the extent of the damage and casualties. Faller said a U.S. Geological Survey assessment projected there could be more than 10,000 deaths.
One of the U.S. helicopters landed Thursday in Les Cayes with equipment, medicine and volunteers, including some from the aid group Samaritan’s Purse.
Distributing aid to the thousands left homeless could be more challenging.
Chery said officials are hoping to start clearing sites where homes were destroyed to allow residents to build temporary shelters.
“It will be easier to distribute aid if people are living at their addresses, rather than in a tent,” he said.