Bahamas face humanitarian crisis after Dorian – News

Between evacuations, searches for victims and health risks, the Bahamas were preparing this Sunday to face a long humanitarian crisis, one week after the devastating pbadage of Hurricane Dorian, which also struck Canada.

The interim record of the disaster, communicated sparingly by the authorities of the Bahamas, has not changed since Friday night: 43 dead. But the archipelago authorities have repeatedly warned that the number was increasing.

Survivors consulted in recent days by AFP on the island of Abaco, that Dorian struck on September 1 and 2 with winds of over 250 km / h, feared the worst.

"There are dead everywhere," "the bodies are still lying," they said, trying by all means to leave their private island of water and electricity, where debris has accumulated at middle of the rubble under intense heat.

Given the increased health risks, the Bahamian Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization said in a joint statement Saturday that the archipelago was not currently facing a epidemic.

"No island in the Bahamas has been quarantined," the text says. "Floods can potentially increase the transmission of contagious diseases related to water.

However, no case of cholera has been detected so far nor has the number of infectious diseases due to the hurricane increased, "he added.

Dorian has left at least 70,000 people homeless on the most-affected islands, Abacus and Grand Bahama, according to the UN, whose World Food Program has provided nearly 15,000 meals and tons of equipment in the region.

The devastation caused by the hurricane will last "generations", warned the Bahamian Prime Minister, Hubert Minnis, while the tourist archipelago was preparing to face a long humanitarian crisis.

Dorian in Canada

Thousands of kilometers to the north and after very slight effects on the US coast, Dorian continues to Canada with strong gusts of up to 140 km / h, torrential rains and waves of nearly 20 meters.

Requalified by the Canadian Hurricane Center as "a very violent post-tropical cyclone," he made landfall Saturday night in the province of Nova Scotia, where nearly 400,000 households were without electricity Sunday morning.

Trees were uprooted, power lines fell and a crane collapsed in a building under construction in Halifax, but no serious injuries were reported.

The streets of this port city of 400 000 inhabitants, deserted during the pbadage of the Dorian, came back to life in the morning with the sound of chain saws.

"It's over.Now we can start cleaning as soon as the sun comes up," said Paul Mason of the Nova Scotia Emergency Department.