Outside the rubble, Haiti tends to its living
Saturday, 23 January 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - With food, cash and medicine starting to flow, Haiti's government and aid workers are turning to the mammoth task of feeding and sheltering hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors still living in the capital's rubble-strewn streets and filthy tent cities.
As many as 1.5 million Haitians were made homeless by the January 12 earthquake that rocked the small Caribbean country and devastated its capital of Port-au-Prince. They need food and water and many require medical care. Raw from aftershocks, some remain too traumatized to sleep under a roof.
The government said Thursday 400,000 survivors would be moved to new villages to be built outside the ravaged coastal city, where the homeless huddle, cook and sleep amid decaying corpses and mounds of garbage.
Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said the first wave would move 100,000 refugees to tent villages of 10,000 each near the northern town of Croix Des Bouquets. Aid and food is moving into Port-au-Prince, but many still lack basic necessities 10 days after the magnitude 7 quake battered the Western Hemisphere's poorest country and killed up to 200,000 people.
As many as 1.5 million Haitians were made homeless by the January 12 earthquake that rocked the small Caribbean country and devastated its capital of Port-au-Prince. They need food and water and many require medical care. Raw from aftershocks, some remain too traumatized to sleep under a roof.
The government said Thursday 400,000 survivors would be moved to new villages to be built outside the ravaged coastal city, where the homeless huddle, cook and sleep amid decaying corpses and mounds of garbage.
Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said the first wave would move 100,000 refugees to tent villages of 10,000 each near the northern town of Croix Des Bouquets. Aid and food is moving into Port-au-Prince, but many still lack basic necessities 10 days after the magnitude 7 quake battered the Western Hemisphere's poorest country and killed up to 200,000 people.