Haiti's forgotten south: Destruction like Port-au-Prince's (Feature)

By Franz Smets Jan 19, 2010, 21:06 GMT

Port-au-Prince - A week after the quake that devastated Haiti, the first reliable news of the situation in the south and south-west of the Caribbean country started to leak through.

So far, there had only been conflicting reports on the magnitude of damage there, particularly in the cities of Jacmel, on Haiti's southern coast, and Leogane, west of Port-au-Prince.

By Tuesday, it was clear that these cities, and many other places, were destroyed just like the Haitian capital. And that there too, many, many people died in the quake.

A week after the massive 7.0 magnitude temblor crushed this country of 9 million, comprehensive international aid had not made it to these devastated areas. International organizations that have sent their teams to survey these regions confirmed that much.

Stuart Coles of Plan International, a group that works to alleviate child poverty in 48 countries, noted that it was extremely difficult to get to Jacmel. The normal two-hour trip took 12 hours in recent days.

Plan International sent a cargo ship from the Dominican Republic - which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti - to Jacmel, he said. The ship, carrying 4,000 tents and hundreds of emergency packages with water, dehydrated food, cups and plates, among others, arrived in the southern Haitian city late Monday.

Aid is already pouring into Haiti from around the world, but it is concentrated on the capital of Port-au-Prince and its 1.9 million people. So several countries and aid organizations are now working to palliate the great need in outlying areas.

'There, and further inland, there are villages where no rescue teams have been so far,' Birgit Zeitler of the German non- governmental organization Welthungerhilfe said after visiting Leogane and the city of Petit Goave, further west.

In Petit Goave, the quake devastated the shore and scrapped the boardwalk.

'The beach there was simply reduced to a width of 40 metres, and the sea reaches to right by the houses,' Zeitler said.

Japan and Switzerland are among the countries that plan to focus their efforts in the provinces, outside Port-au-Prince. Japanese Ambassador Nobutaka Shinomiya spoke to the German Press Agency dpa after returning from Leogane.

'The situation there is extremely bad,' he said.

Japan, which has committed 5 million dollars in aid for Haiti, plans to send to Leogane 26 military doctors along with medical equipment and foodstuffs. He criticized the lack of coordination for the distribution of aid.

'We're going the bilateral way,' he noted.

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders already sent off a team expected to arrive in Leogane Tuesday.

In the meantime, aid organizations working under the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) started to distribute aid packages and drinking water in Port-au-Prince.

Since last week's quake, tens of thousands of homeless have spread around the city, sleeping among the rubble and dead bodies on streets and parks. Rubbish piles are growing, although a few garbage trucks are already active. Hygiene problems and health threats are on the rise.

Experts could no longer rule out the outbreak in the coming days of bouts of infectious diseases.

Many people who had migrated to Port-au-Prince from the north were being picked up by their relatives and leaving the city in packed trucks. Most residents, however, could not get away and settled in the wild camps in the capital.

By Tuesday, some small-scale trade had started: women were selling spaghetti, biscuits, sugar-cane sticks. Small foodstalls were emerging that used charcoal for fuel.

In the evening, around 6 pm, when the sun goes down, small bonfires lit up. Priests came out to pray and sing with the crwod.

Afterwards, all went quiet and dark.