Two months after arguably the worst natural disaster of modern times, Haiti faces further calamity as more than 200,000 quake survivors camp in putrid tent cities at risk of major flooding.
The full number made homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake is far higher, some 1.3 million, but as the rainy season approaches the UN considers 218,000 people in 21 Port-au-Prince camps to be at risk.
“The problem with the rainy season is it is a very indefinite deadline,” said Kristen Knutson, a spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The government is struggling to buy land to set up emergency camps outside the capital, but these areas will take up to six weeks to turn into viable sites and Knutson said moving people outside the capital was a “last resort.”
“Relocation is what people focus on because it’s very visual, you can see the site, and because of all the dynamics of identifying the land, buying the land,” the UN spokeswoman said.
“It’s dramatic. But there are other choices that are available for people and if they are better for people and they are available we want them to take them. We want people to be where they want to be,” she said.
Those with houses still standing are being encouraged to return home, but many are still traumatized by what happened and engineers and architects have to painstakingly assess which buildings are structurally sound.
Others are being advised to move back home and camp if a safe plot can be found, while 600,000 people have already opted to move in with host families.
Only when those possibilities have been exhausted and no closer site can be found will it be recommended that those at risk on the Port-au-Prince flood plains be relocated outside the capital.
Santo 17, a first planned site with an initial capacity of 1,400 opened on Saturday at Croix-des-Bouquets, a town 13km northeast of the capital.
Heavy rains poured fresh misery on Port-au-Prince early on Monday, and mother-of-six Berta Romelus said she spent a miserable night sleeping on her feet as the rain gushed under her tent.
Even though rain turned the camp of more than 4,000 homeless, in a former soccer stadium in the suburb of Petionville, into a giant latrine, Romelus scoffed at the idea of moving.
“They cannot decide for us, we want to see first where they want to move us. We don’t want to go to Croix-des-Bouquets, it is too far. We want to live close to here. We are going to stay here whatever happens,” she said.
Behind Romelus were the only tents capable of resisting the rains, but these are reserved for children and babies — one was born overnight during some of the heaviest rains since the quake, which killed more than 220,000 people.
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