‘DEVASTATION IS EVERYWHERE’
Hurricane Matthew’s toll revealed
DESOLATE
Drew Garrison, a Haiti-based missionary who flew in Friday, said several fishing villages along the coast were submerged and he could see bodies floating in the water. “Anything that wasn’t concrete was flattened,” said Garrison. “There were several little fishing villages that just looked desolate, no life.” Pilus Enor, mayor of Camp Perrin, a town near the port city of Les Cayes on the peninsula’s south shore, said, “Devastation is everywhere. Every house has lost its roof.”
THIEVES
Telemaque Dieuseal, 54-yearold farmer, fled his small house to stay with a cousin. When he returned, he could not find his TV, motorcycle or radio in the wreckage. “The thieves were out all day after the storm stealing everything they could get,” Dieuseal said. “It’s going to take a long time to get back on my feet.”
842
Number of fatalities in Haiti, according to Reuters news agency. But authorities doing the on-ground assessment in remote corners of the southwestern peninsula said it would likely be significantly higher. “We don’t have any contact with Port-au-Prince yet and there are places we still haven’t reached,” said Saint-Victor Jeune, an official with the Civil Protection agency.
826,000
The number of Florida homes and businesses without power on Friday. Hurricane Matthew churned along Florida’s Atlantic coast Friday, looking increasingly like its centre would remain just offshore as the storm battered the state with punishing rain, beach-swallowing sea surges and destructive wind gusts topping 160 km/h. But it still poses a considerable threat to residents from Florida to North Carolina.
CHOLERA
Cholera, a potentially deadly disease spread by contaminated water, is a main concern for relief agencies. “This is a very great danger for the city,” said Tony Guillaume, an orthopedic surgeon in the hospital in Les Cayes. “They can contaminate others.” Cholera was once unknown in Haiti until its appearance after the 2010 earthquake and is believed to be linked to the presence of UN peacekeepers. More than 800,000 people were infected and 10,000 died in that outbreak.
‘THE WIND TOOK THEM’
Those killed in Haiti included a woman and her six-year-old daughter who abandoned their flimsy home and headed to a nearby church to seek shelter. “On the way to the church, the wind took them,” said Ernst Ais, mayor of the town of Cavaillon.
HOMELESS
Solette Phelicin, a mother of five who lost her home, watched from her yard as UN peacekeepers patrolled a small air strip. She said they were hungry and desperately in need of food. “Jeremie might get rebuilt after I’m dead, maybe, but I doubt it.” Homes throughout the area were piles of rubble, the roofs mangled or stripped away. Tens of thousands are homeless.