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Haiti: Hurricane Sandy - Preliminary emergency appeal n° MDRHT010

Countries
Haiti
Sources
IFRC
Publication date
Origin
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The situation

Similar to other countries in the Caribbean, Haiti has been adversely affected by torrential rainfall as a result of Hurricane Sandy. A day after the passing of the storm over Cuba and the Bahamas the tail of the storm was still over the island of Hispaniola and heavy rains continued to batter Haiti until 27 October. In three days, the Sud department, for example, received almost 300mm of rain. Thus the government of Haiti maintained a red alert for the whole country as the rains continued. The most affected departments include Ouest (Tabarre, Fond Verettes, Léogane, Anse-à-Galets, Gantier); Sud (Port-Salut, Les Cayes, Tiburon, Port à Piment, St Louis du Sud, Cavaillon and Les Anglais), Grande-Anse (Dame Marie, Anse d’Hainaut, Roseau, lles Cayemithes, Pestel), Nippes (Baradères, Miragoane), Sud-est (Mapou); and Artibonite (Grande Saline,La Chapelle, Verettes). All rivers in the southern peninsula were swollen and most burst their banks and flooded low lying areas. Due to this there is significant flooding in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, southern departments and Artibonite.

Damage and needs assessments

Information from the Haiti Red Cross Society teams, the Department of Civil Protection (DPC) and OCHA shows that up to 17,187 people were evacuated to 118 emergency shelters and in all some 18,907 families were affected (roughly 94,535 people). There were 51 confirmed deaths, 18 wounded and 15 persons are missing. In addition 4,169 houses have been flooded, 10,813 damaged and 3,925 destroyed. In addition, the General Hospital in Les Cayes, especially the emergency room and the internal medicine ward, were under 50cm of water. Accessibility of some areas has been affected by damage to roads and bridges in the south department with Ganthier for instance having been cut off from the rest of the country after the access bridge was swept away by flood waters.