Three Hurricanes have devastated large parts of Haiti within the course of a few days. One of the hardest hit areas is around Cabaret, a small town where the Red Cross Red Crescent is now helping the survivors to rebuild their lives.
It was not Hurricane Gustav that did the damage in Cabaret, a small town some 50 kilometres from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Nor was it Hurricane Hanna, which lashed Haiti a week later. The town somehow managed to survive both tempests. But when Hurricane Ike passed over the Caribbean, hot on the heels of Hanna, the sheer volume of water it dumped on Haiti proved too much for Cabaret and its surroundings.
The floods unleashed by the torrential rains, gushing down unimpeded through the deforested hills, led the local river to burst its banks, change its course and wash away many of the badly built homes.
A nightmare of mud and water
Banana plantations were flattened. Firm, packed soil turned to soft mud as roads subsided, houses collapsed and telephone poles lurched under the strain. And worse, people sleeping in their beds at four o’clock in the morning - many of them children - were swept away in the torrents and the darkness. Sixty people are reported to have died in Cabaret.
Walking around the hot and dusty streets in the calm afternoons that followed Ike it is hard to imagine the howling winds and driving rain that so punished this town. But the evidence is everywhere – not just in the trampled crops and fallen houses, but in the mud.
Mud lies piled up on both sides of the streets where it has been shovelled to make the streets passable again. It sits a foot deep in the kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms of the modest homes, rendering them temporarily uninhabitable. It covers gardens and back yards, drying and cracking in the sun.
And if you look closely at the mud, you are reminded of the suddenness of how it all happened, for in the mud lies the debris of broken homes and shaken families - shoes and sandals, schoolbooks and toys, plates and cups - and you realise how much many people have lost.
Rebuilding lives - starting with almost nothing
After Ike, a well-built school in the town has become home to 223 families: a thousand people eating, sleeping and washing in a building designed for education. There are more of these temporary shelters around Cabaret, as there are many more around Haiti in the wake of the successive hurricanes.
Today there is a buzz around the school because the IFRC, working together with Haitian Red Cross volunteers, is distributing some essential things to each family in the shelter. Each registered head of household has been given a ticket entitling him or her to a blanket, a complete set of kitchen utensils, a hygiene kit, a mosquito net, a jerry can and a bucket - the basics needed to help them rebuild their lives.
Queues form and everything is distributed in an orderly and efficient way, led by a team drawn from the American and Benelux Red Cross Societies. There is no ceremony, no speechmaking, just a calm and effective distribution. It may not seem like much - pots and pans, blankets and buckets, but for those who have lost everything it is a lot: the first step on the road to recovery.
|
 |
 |
|
|
Haitian Red Cross volunteers prepare food packages, drinking water and kitchen utensils for distribution in Cabaret. In this town torrential rains have unleashed floods and mudslides, collapsing houses and killing dozens of people. (p18271)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Red Cross Red Crescent personnel check aid and emergency supplies arriving at Port-au-Prince International Airport. Haiti was battered by three separate hurricanes in the space of 12 days, causing extensive damage throughout the country. (p18270)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
A young girl drinks from a water bag given to her by Haitian Red Cross volunteers in Cabaret. After three consecutive hurricanes struck this town, many people were left without basic foodstuffs, clean water and the means to cook. (p18272)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
A man looks at the remains of a house that collapsed following floods unleashed by Hurricane Ike in Cabaret, Haiti. Ike was the third hurricane to slam Haiti in the space of 12 days. About 350 people are believed to have died in the storms, and over 10,000 houses were destroyed leaving 150,000 people requiring shelter. (p18273)
|
|
News
