Soaked, exhausted inhabitants, with no other choice but to urinate and defecate in streets threatened by flooding: the southwest of Haiti is plunging hour by hour into chaos, the victims of its recent earthquake being helpless on Tuesday. the severe weather of a new tropical storm.
In the city of Les Cayes, more than 200 people are starting to build, under a persistent wind and rain, precarious shelters on a flooded football field. All are affected by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Saturday, which in seconds reduced tens of thousands of homes to dust. At least 1,400 people were killed, according to a still provisional toll.
With only a shower cap to protect herself from drops, Magalie Cadet is exhausted by the three days of hardship she has just suffered.
“Even to do our needs, we have no place, so we have to look in the streets to relieve ourselves,” laments this 41-year-old woman, her nerves worn down by the incessant aftershocks of the earthquake. Some 6,900 people were injured by the tremors, some extracted from piles of rubble. The authorities have appealed for blood donations to rescue them.
Rather “wet than dead”
In addition to the ordeal of the victims who sleep outside, on Tuesday, the showers carried by tropical storm Grace are added. The precipitation in places may cause “major flooding”, according to the American Hurricane Center, based in Miami.
Under these conditions, the Haitian authorities called for “extreme vigilance” with regard to the cracked houses, which could collapse under the weight of the rain.
“Last night we had a bad time. Lots of wind and then rain. I remained seated: each time, the gusts sent us water, ”says Natacha Lormira while holding in one hand the thin piece of wood to which a torn tarp is attached. “I don’t want to go under a gallery or a corner of a wall because we’ve all seen people die under sections of walls. So we resign ourselves: better to be wet than dead, ”she laments.
“The state does not regulate anything”
Drenched by the persistent rain, Vladimir Gilles tries to plant a few pieces of bamboo deep enough in the lawn to protect his wife and child.
“My house is destroyed, I have nowhere to sleep. We need a plastic sheet to just take a nap in the dry but the state does not regulate anything, ”plague the young man of 28 years.
Access to water also remains very restricted in places, such as in the town of Pestel, where more than 1,800 cisterns are cracked or crushed, raising fears of a deterioration in sanitary conditions.