Tropical storm feeds growing anger

LES CAYES (AP) :

Heavy rain from Tropical Storm Grace forced a temporary halt Tuesday to the Haitian government’s response to the deadly weekend earthquake, feeding the growing anger and frustration among thousands who were left homeless.

Grace battered southwestern Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned some areas could get 15 inches (38 centimetres) of rain before the storm moved on. Heavy rain also drenched the capital of Port-au-Prince.

The storm hit Haiti late Monday, the same day that the country’s Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll from the earthquake to 1,419 and the number of injured to 6,000, many of whom have had to wait for medical help lying outside in wilting heat.

As rains soaked the earthquake-damaged city of Les Cayes on Tuesday, patience was running out in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Haitians already were struggling with the coronavirus, gang violence, worsening poverty and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse when the quake hit.

Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble, and the smell of death hung heavily over a pancaked, three-storey apartment building. A simple bed sheet covered the body of a three-year-old girl that firefighters had found an hour earlier.

Neighbour Joseph Boyer, 53, said he knew the girl’s family.

“The mother and father are in the hospital, but all three kids died,” he said. The bodies of the other two siblings were found earlier.

Illustrating the lack of government presence, volunteer firefighters from the nearby city of Cap-Hatien had left the body out in the rain because police have to be present before it could be taken away.

Another neighbour, James Luxama, 24, repeated a popular rumour at many disaster scenes, saying that someone was sending text messages for help from inside the rubble. But Luxama had not personally seen or received such a message.

A throng of angry, shouting men gathered in front of the collapsed building, a sign that patience was running out for people who have waited days for help from the government.

“The photographers come through, the press, but we have no tarps for our roofs,” said one man, who refused to give his name. The head of Haiti’s office of civil protection Jerry Chandler acknowledged the situation.

Earthquake assessments had to be paused because of the heavy rain, “and people are getting aggressive”, Chandler said Tuesday.