The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is appealing for 1.7 million Swiss francs (US $ 1.6 million US dollars/ euro 1.1 million) to support the relief effort in the Caribbean countries affected by Hurricane Gustav.
Thousands of Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers are working around the clock to help more than 35,000 people affected by the hurricane.
“The relief effort started before Gustav hit the Caribbean, now we need resources to continue supporting 7,000 families with relief items to help them recover,” says Dario Alvarez, the IFRC’s disaster management coordinator on the ground.
These families include 2,000 in Haiti, 2,000 in Jamaica and 3,000 in Cuba.
After Hurricane Gustav passed through Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Cuba, the Red Cross societies in those countries, alongside other agencies, started damage and need assessments. Based on these reports, this preliminary appeal focuses on providing hygiene kits, kitchen sets, mosquito nets, construction tools and jerry cans.
Gustav, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall on Haiti on 26 August. Official government figures reported 71 people dead and 9 missing. More than 8,000 people took refuge in emergency shelters, 2,121 houses have been destroyed and 8,155 houses have been damaged.
In Jamaica, the government evacuated the most vulnerable residents and opened 96 shelters housing 1,605 people.
In Cuba the civil defence ordered a preventive evacuation of 250,000 at-risk people while the government opened 91 emergency shelters. Around 2,000 houses have been destroyed and 150,000 damaged.
The Haitian National Red Cross Society mobilized 250 disaster management volunteers in response to the hurricane, and says that their actions saved many lives by urging vulnerable communities to move to safer grounds.
The IFRC’s Pan American Disaster Response Unit (PADRU), based in Panama, has been in close contact with the affected National Societies and has deployed disaster management delegates to help with the response.