Haiti fortifying itself to cope with aftermath of latest natural disaster
FAUCHE, Haiti — A woman who lost just about everything now gives her children coffee for meals because it quiets their stomachs a bit. Another despondent mother relives the awful moment when her 18-month- old baby was swept from her arms by a flash food. The bodies of a family of five killed in a mudslide still sit in a morgue unclaimed.
Haitians, who know well the death and despair natural disasters can cause, suffered mightily from Hurricane Sandy, which bashed the country’s rural areas and killed at least 54 people.
Three weeks after the hurricane’s deluge, Haiti, still struggling to recover from the earthquake in January 2010, is facing its biggest blow to reconstruction and slipping deeper into crisis, U.N. and government officials say, with hundreds of thousands of others at risk of hunger or malnutrition.
All around this hamlet and others nearby, the men and women who farmed bananas, plantains, sugar cane, beans and breadfruit stare at fields swept of trees, still flooded or coated with river muck that will probably kill off whatever plants are left.
They had little, have endured much, and now need more.
Hardened by past disasters, they still fear the days and weeks ahead.
“I do not know where we will find money for food and school now,” said Olibrun Hilaire, 61, surveying his wrecked plantain and sugar cane farm in PetitGoave that supported his family of 10 children and grandchildren.
Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said in an interview that the government would focus more on short-term goals like dredging river beds and repairing bridges and roads.
“We have limited means and the devastation is huge,” he said, looking weary after having just received pictures of fresh flooding and casualties. “We are going to use this tragedy to invest in prevention.”
The government, Lamothe said, was working on plans to provide farmers with cash assistance and seeds and to use locally grown products in emergency food kits, to support farms that can still produce.
“We are a fragile state and can only do what we have the financial means for,” Lamothe said.
Economic distress in the countryside could undermine the government’s goal of halting migration to big cities like Port-auPrince, where severe overcrowding contributed to the high death toll in the earthquake.