UN PEACEKEEPERS and aid groups struggled to feed thousands left hungry by Tropical Storm Hanna but had yet to reach thousands even as powerful Hurricane Ike approached yesterday.
Police Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said 495 bodies had been found in the mud-heaped port city of Gonaives, where thousands survived by climbing on rooftops. That brought the Haiti death toll to at least 529.
More bad weather is expected, whic
h could impede aid delivery, recovery of bodies and – with the ground already saturated and rivers overflowing – kill even more people.
With Category 3 Hurricane Ike approaching, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami issued a tropical storm warning yesterday for parts of Haiti, including Gonaives.
The UN World Food Programme said that successive deadly storms have displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed scores of homes and plantations. A ship chartered by the WFP arrived on Friday carrying food and water, which peacekeepers began delivering to desperate survivors of Hanna in emergency shelters.
"WFP has first-rate logistics and this storm system is putting us to the test," said Myrta Kaulard, the WFP representative in Haiti.
Flooded roads, broken piers and mass mobile phone outages impeded efforts on Friday to get food to about 2,000 people, even as Hurricane Ike threatened to trigger more deadly floods across the water-logged city this weekend.
The rusty container ship Trois Rivieres, chartered by the WFP, arrived belching white smoke at a remote private port outside the city. It was guarded by Argentine peacekeepers brandishing assault rifles.
With the skies finally clear, aid also began to trickle in by air. At least eight UN helicopters carrying personnel and food landed at the peacekeepers' base at the foot of a deforested mountain. Two US Coast Guard helicopters brought in food donated by the US Agency for International Development.
But the respite was expected to be brief. Ike, a dangerous Category 3 hurricane, was forecast to pass just north of Haiti today.
Even if Haiti avoids a direct hit, Ike is almost certain to bring rain to the fertile Artibonite Valley, whose rivers funnel into Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, and the surrounding flood plain.
Max Cocsi, who directs Belgium's mission in Haiti of Doctors Without Borders, said it would take little rain to compound the disaster as the soil is already saturated and rivers are overflowing from three tropical storms in less than three weeks.
The two earlier storms, Fay and Gustav, killed at least 96 Haitians. "We don't need a hurricane – a storm would be enough," he said.
The US Southern Command diverted the amphibious USS Kearsarge from Colombia to Haiti to assist in the relief effort. The ship should arrive today and has a medical unit that includes four operating rooms and 53 beds.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna sailed easily over the beaches along the US coast and moved inland yesterday, blowing hard and dumping rain in eastern North Carolina, but causing little damage beyond isolated flooding as it quickly headed north toward the New England states. "Hanna is heading north in a hurry, leaving behind sunshine for the weekend," said Myrtle Beach city spokesman Mark Kruea.
He said that city services would be open and that, "despite a week of preliminary hype", the storm did not have much of an impact on the city aside from a few uprooted trees and some power outages that were repaired in less than half an hour.
It was the same story in eastern North Carolina, where Hanna headed with top winds of around 50mph after coming ashore at around 3.20am.
At least 1,500 people spent the night in shelters, and more than 60,000 customers – mostly around Wilmington, North Carolina – were without power early yesterday in the Carolinas. In Virginia, 20,000 customers had no power. State police closed all northbound lanes of Interstate 95 just north of Richmond after power lines fell around 8.30am.
And the Coast Guard closed all navigable waters in the Port of Hampton Roads, the lower Maryland Eastern Shore and the Port of Richmond, Virginia, on the James River.
Heavy rain fell in the Carolinas, including five inches in Fayetteville and the Sandhills region. The same was forecast for central Virginia, Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania, where some spots could get up to 10in. Forecasters warned of the potential for flash-flooding in the northern mid-Atlantic states and southern New England.
"Fortunately it happened during the night, on the weekend. That would be a mess if it happened during the week as people are trying to get to work," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Blaes.
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