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LES CAYES, Haiti (AP) – Tropical Depression Grace swept through Haiti with torrential rains just two days after a powerful earthquake struck the impoverished Caribbean nation, adding to the misery of thousands of people who lost loved ones, suffered injuries or found themselves homeless and overwhelmed hospitals and emergency responders to act quickly.
After dark, heavy rains and high winds hit the southwest of the country, hardest hit by Saturday’s earthquake, and authorities warned that rainfall could reach 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some areas before the storm spreads. Port-au-Prince, the capital, also experienced heavy rains.
The storm arrived the same day the country’s Civil Protection Agency brought the death toll from the earthquake to 1,419 and the injured to 6,000, many of whom had to wait for medical help lying outside by a woman. scorching heat.
Grace’s rain and wind increased the threat of mudslides and flash floods as it slowly passed through the Tiburon Peninsula in southwest Haiti overnight, before heading for Jamaica and southeastern Cuba on Tuesday.
The earthquake nearly destroyed some towns in the southwest in the latest disaster to hit the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Haitians were already grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, gang violence, worsening poverty and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
“We are in an exceptional situation,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry told reporters Monday afternoon as the storm approached.
A hospital in the badly damaged town of Les Cayes was so overcrowded with patients after the earthquake that many had to lie in patios, hallways, verandas and hallways, but the approaching storm prompted authorities to shut down. scramble to move them as best they could.
“We had planned to pitch tents (in hospital patios), but we were told it couldn’t be safe,” said Gede Peterson, director of Les Cayes General Hospital.
This is not the first time that the hospital has been forced to improvise. Refrigeration in the hospital morgue has not worked for three months, but after Saturday’s earthquake, staff had to store up to 20 bodies in the small space. Relatives quickly came to take over most private embalming or immediate burial services. As of Monday, only three bodies were in the morgue.
“We are now working to ensure that the resources we have available go to the hardest hit places,” said Civil Protection Agency chief Jerry Chandler, referring to the hard-hit towns of Les Cayes and Jérémie and the department of Nippes. .
The victims of the earthquake continued to flock to the overwhelmed general hospital in Les Cayes, waiting on the steps of the stairs, in the hallways and on an open veranda.
“After two days they are almost always usually infected,” said Dr Paurus Michelete, who had treated 250 patients and was one of three doctors on call when the earthquake struck. He added that pain relievers, pain relievers and steel pins to repair fractures were lacking amid crushing patients.
Meanwhile, rescuers and scrap collectors dug into the floors of a collapsed hotel in the coastal town, where 15 bodies had already been extracted. Jean Moise Fortunè, whose brother, hotel owner and prominent politician, was killed in the earthquake, believed there were more people trapped in the rubble.
But based on the size of the voids workers cautiously peered into, perhaps a foot (30 centimeters) deep, finding survivors seemed unlikely.
As work, fuel and money ran out, desperate residents of Les Cayes searched collapsed homes for scrap metal to sell. Others were waiting for money transferred from abroad, one of the pillars of the Haitian economy even before the earthquake.
Anthony Emile stood in line for six hours with dozens of other people trying to get money his brother had wired from Chile, where he has worked since the 2010 earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital and claimed dozens. thousands of deaths.
“We’ve been waiting for him since morning, but it’s too crowded,” said Emile, a banana farmer who said relatives in the countryside depended on him to give them money to survive.
In Jérémie, police commissioner Paul Menard denied a report on social networks reporting looting.
“If that were to happen, it would have been the first or second night,” Menard said.
Authorities said the 7.2 magnitude earthquake destroyed more than 7,000 homes and nearly 5,000 damaged, leaving some 30,000 families homeless. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches were also destroyed or badly damaged.
Josil Eliophane, 84, crouched on the steps of Les Cayes general hospital, holding an x-ray showing his broken arm bone and pleading for pain relievers. Michelete said he would give one of his few remaining blows to Eliophane, who fled his home when the earthquake struck, only to have a wall fall on him.
Nearby, on the hospital’s open-air veranda, patients were on beds and mattresses, connected to IV bags of saline fluid. Others lay in the garden under sheets drawn up to protect them from the sun. None of the patients or loved ones caring for them wore face masks amid a wave of coronavirus.
Structural engineers from Miyamoto International, a global seismic and structural engineering company, visited hard-hit areas on Monday to help with damage assessment and urban search and rescue efforts. Their main job was to inspect government water towers and damaged offices of charities in the region, CEO and chairman Kit Miyamoto said.
Miyamoto said she has seen places devastated by earthquakes rebuilding stronger. He said the destruction in Port-au-Prince from the 2010 earthquake led masons and others to improve their building practices. Residents of the capital estimated that the Saturday morning shake was centered about 75 miles to the west and rushed into the streets in fear, but no damage was reported there.
“The building in Port-au-Prince is much better than it was in 2010 – I know that,” Miyamoto said. “It’s a huge difference, but this knowledge is not widespread. The focus is definitely on Port-au-Prince.
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Associated Press editors Trenton Daniel in New York and Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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