Tropical Storm Hanna heads to US after devastating Haiti

Sep 6, 2008, 6:00 GMT

Port-au-Prince - The United Nations handed out food and water to desperate Haitians on Friday after the first shipload of aid arrived in the flooded and devastated city of Gonaives.

At least 163 people have died in Haiti as a result of Tropical Storm Hanna, officials said Friday, as it sped toward the south-eastern US coast.

Of the confirmed deaths, 119 in the region around Gonaives, Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste, head of civil protection in Haiti, said Friday night.

Hanna devastated crops in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, and relief organizations fear that by the end of the year 4 million Haitians will be facing famine.

Also inundated by Tropical Storm Hanna were neighbouring Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos islands to the north, the Bahamas and Jamaica.

With winds of 110 kilometres per hour, Hanna is moving towards the east coast of the US and was 95 kilometres east- south-east of Charleston, South Carolina, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 11 pm Friday (0300 GMT Saturday).

Forecasters at the Miami-based NHC were also tracking two other storms - Ike and Josephine - that have been brewing in the Atlantic Ocean and heading west.

Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 3 storm, was forecast to pass just north of Haiti on Sunday and is almost certain to bring rain more to Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, and the surrounding flood plain.

Haiti was lashed by Hurricane Gustav, which killed more than 70 people, and before that Tropical Storm Fay, which left at least 40 dead two weeks ago.

The European Union has allocated 2.8 million dollars in fast-track relief funding. The funds, to be used for vital needs, is in addition to 2.8 million dollars announced on September 1 in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav

'We have reports of tens of thousands people who need the most basic help,' Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said. 'Their situation is desperate and we must get relief to them as fast as possible.'

John Holmes, chief coordinator of the UN humanitarian emergency programme, said Friday that UN agencies have deployed workers while the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti was helping with evacuations in flooded areas.

Holmes estimated 600,000 Haitians need help, including 250,000 in Gonaives district alone.

The authorities were also considering the possibility of evacuating the city of Gonaives. The city had already been devastated in September 2004, after 3,000 people died in a mudslide caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne.

With maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour, Ike was developing as a category 3 hurricane on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale and likely to hit the Bahamas first late Saturday, the NHC said.

'Some weakening is forecast during the next 24 hours, but Ike is expected to be a major hurricane in a couple of days,' the hurricane centre said Friday.

In the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti, Emergency Operations Centre director Juan Mendez warned that 'the evacuation of all areas at risk was launched Wednesday and is compulsory.'

He said at least three dams in the country were at full capacity, and as authorities started to release some of the water they moved residents from neighbouring towns.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Josephine was downgraded to a depression Friday with sustained winds of 55 kilometres per hour. Its centre was west of the Cape Verde Islands and as it moved west-northwest it was expected to weaken over the next 24 hours.