JEREMIE, Haiti (AP) — As a pale blue coffin came into view, grieving women flung themselves to the floor near a morgue overlooking the ravaged city of Jeremie, where a humanitarian crisis has emerged in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.
JEREMIE, Haiti (AP) — As a pale blue coffin came into view, grieving women flung themselves to the floor near a morgue overlooking the ravaged city of Jeremie, where a humanitarian crisis has emerged in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.
Mourners beat their fists and screamed, their distress growing more intense as attendants opened the door of the morgue on Saturday to bring out the body of Roberto Laguerre, who was killed next to his 3-year-old daughter when the storm roared through this city in southwest Haiti as a Category 4 storm earlier in the week.
“Why did you leave us? Take me with you!” shouted relative Rita Honore.
Roberto and his daughter, Roseberlande, are among more than 500 people killed from the immediate effects of the storm in southwest Haiti. Authorities fear diseases such as cholera could cause more deaths in the area while the destruction of crops and livestock could cause many people to go hungry.
The precise death toll from the storm remained uncertain. Guillaume Silvera, a senior official with the Civil Protection Agency in the Grand-Anse Department, which is on the tip of the southern peninsula and includes the city of Jeremie, said they had confirmed 522 deaths, not including anyone in several remote communities that they have yet to reach because of collapsed roads and bridges.
“We think the numbers will have to go up,” Silvera said.
Civil Protection headquarters in Port-au-Prince, meanwhile, said Saturday their official count for the whole country was 336, which included 191 deaths in Grand-Anse.
UNICEF said that in Grand Anse alone there were 66,000 houses destroyed and 20,000 heavily damaged.