Aid flows a bit more quickly into Haiti; challenges remain

LES CAYES, Haiti (AP)

Relief for the victims of a powerful earthquake and tropical storm began flowing more quickly into Haiti on Thursday, but the Caribbean nation’s entrenched poverty, insecurity, and lack of basic infrastructure were still presenting huge challenges to getting food and urgent medical care to all those who need it.

Private relief supplies and shipments from the US government and others were arriving in the southwestern peninsula where the weekend quake struck, killing more than 2,100 people. But the need was extreme, made worse by the rain from Tropical Storm Grace, and people were growing frustrated with the slow pace.

Adding to the problems, a major hospital in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where many of the injured were being sent, was closed on Thursday for a two-day shutdown to protest the kidnapping of two doctors, including one of the country’s few orthopaedic surgeons.

The abductions dealt a blow to attempts to control criminal violence that has threatened disaster-response efforts in the capital.

Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency late Wednesday raised the number of deaths from the earthquake to 2,189 and said that 12,268 people were injured. More than 300 people are estimated to still be missing, said Serge Chery, head of civil defense for the Southern Province, which includes the hard-hit small port city of Les Cayes.

The magnitude 7.2 earthquake damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes, leaving about 30,000 families homeless, according to official estimates. Hospitals, schools, offices, and churches also were demolished or badly damaged.

The US aid effort has been building since the initial hours after the earthquake. On Thursday, 10 US military helicopters ferried in search-and-rescue teams, medical workers, and supplies that had been pre-positioned in Haiti by the US Agency for International Development after the devastating 2010 earthquake.