Konbit Pou Ayiti

Friends,
We just received this updated report from Joe Duplan, of Haiti KONPAY, who has been on the ground and was in Jacmel when the first hurricane (Gustav) hit last week. We have heard responses from some of you, and we thank you for your generosity. As you may have heard, the situation in the country remains dire and the death count has now exceeded 500. Below Joe's brief summary of the damages to the Jacmel region is the latest report from the New York Times about the situation in Gonaives.

If you haven't made a donation to our Emergency Hurricane Relief Fund, please consider doing so today. You can donate online through our website, www.konpay.org, or send a check to Haiti KONPAY, 7 Wall Street, Gloucester, MA 01930. Your donations will be used for direct assistance to those in need.

Sincerely,
Melinda Miles and Elise Hansen
Haiti KONPAY

Begin forwarded message:

From: joe duplan
Date: September 6, 2008 7:46:07 AM EDT
To: <melinda@haitikonpay.org>
Subject: report for gustav

The official report for our immediate region (Jacmel and its environs) goes as such: 34 dead, 1 disappearance, 17 wounded, 8975 damaged homes out which 2697 destroyed, with 978 families in temporary shelter. Here are two pictures of the floodwaters (above) and debris in Cyvadier and the area (below).

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Nearly 500 people died when more than 16 feet of muddy water swept through the town of Gonaïves this week, propelled by torrential rains from Tropical Storm Hanna, police officials said Friday.

A flooded street in Gonaïves, a storm-stricken Haitian city where many have gone with little food or clean water for four days.

The death toll in Gonaïves, Haiti’s fourth-largest town, began to be revealed only when the floodwaters began to recede and aid started to be delivered to those who survived by fleeing to their roofs.

“The weather is calm now and we are discovering more bodies,” said Ernst Dorfeuille, the city’s police commissioner. “We have found 495 bodies so far, and there are 13 people missing.”

“The smell of the dead is very unpleasant in Gonaïves,” he said. “The death toll could be even higher.”

The 13 missing people were trapped in a house, and neighbors who heard them screaming for help said they did not think they had managed to escape.

In all, at least 529 Haitians have died after a week of floods and mudslides caused by Hanna, a storm that swirled over the southeastern Bahamas for several days before aiming for the Carolinas along the United States’ Atlantic coast on Friday.

The United Nations said it would appeal for emergency funds to help as many as 600,000 Haitians affected by the storm.

A freighter with food supplied by the World Food Program, carrying drinking water and other supplies, docked Friday in Gonaïves, where the streets were thick with mud and littered with the carcasses of drowned animals after four days of flooding.