While most Americans have understandably been concerned about Ike’s assault on Texas, people in Haiti just a few hundred miles away are suffering an even worse fate.
More than a week after Ike assaulted Haiti, people in Gonaives, the country’s third-largest city, are still stranded on rooftops and trapped by rivers of mud. Others in remote areas remain huddled in schools and churches, their villages cut off from the capital by washed out bridges and roads.
At least 1,000 deaths have been reported, with more expected as the waters recede. Of those affected, 52% are estimated to be women and 36% children.
Haiti is not just on the brink of disaster, as Haitian President Rene Preval noted in his plea for international aid. It is over the brink.
Right now, Haiti needs all the help it can get, with food, drinking water, medical supplies and shelter being at the top of the list. Elderly people and pregnant women are among the most vulnerable needing care.
However, few medical facilities were able to remain open. Those that could are running critically low on supplies and can't replenish them because of the impassable roads. Add to that standing water, and there is a growing concern over water-borne diseases and festering injuries that could lead to a second wave of disaster.
A million people remain homeless. Crops and livestock have been wiped out, making an already chronically dire hunger situation worse.
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