Haiti advises evacuation of all earthquake camps
More than 1 million people were advised to leave earthquake homeless camps in Haiti's rubble-choked capital as disaster officials watched the approach of Tropical Storm Tomas.
But few of the earthquake survivors who have spent nearly 10 months alternately baking and soaking under plastic tarps and tents have anywhere to go.
Painfully slow reconstruction from the quake, prior storms and the recent committing of resources to fight a growing cholera epidemic have left people with few options and overtaxed aid workers struggling to help.
"We are using radio stations to announce to people that if they don't have a place to go, but they have friends and families, they should move into a place that is secure," said civil protection official Nadia Lochard, who oversees the department that includes Port-au-Prince.
Concerns are even greater in the western reaches of Haiti's southern peninsula, where heavy flooding is predicted.
Disaster officials have extended a red alert, their highest storm warning, to all regions of the country, as the storm is expected to wind its way up the west coast of Hispaniola through storm-vulnerable Gonaives and Haiti's No 2 city, Cap-Haitien, sometime Friday.
The US National Hurricane Center in Miami announced a tropical storm warning for Haiti, along with tropical storm watches for Jamaica, the western Dominican Republic, eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas as well as Turks and Caicos.
The storm, which strengthened from a tropical depression during the day, was 490 kilometers south of Port-au-Prince with maximum winds of 75 kph. It began to make an expected right turn toward the Greater Antilles, moving north-northwest at 9 kph.
Jamaican soldiers will evacuate hundreds of people in the island's eastern region today and move them into emergency shelters ahead of the storm, Information Minister Daryl Vaz said.
"We will be going all out to make good sense prevail," he said at a news conference yesterday.
Most of the people who will be evacuated are squatters living along unstable gullies that often flood during heavy rainstorms.
Kareen Bennett, a forecaster with Jamaica's Meteorological Service, said heavy rains will lash the eastern region by tomorrow morning.
Jamaica is still struggling to recuperate from floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Nicole in late September that killed at least 13 people and caused an estimated USD 125 million in damage.
But few of the earthquake survivors who have spent nearly 10 months alternately baking and soaking under plastic tarps and tents have anywhere to go.
Painfully slow reconstruction from the quake, prior storms and the recent committing of resources to fight a growing cholera epidemic have left people with few options and overtaxed aid workers struggling to help.
"We are using radio stations to announce to people that if they don't have a place to go, but they have friends and families, they should move into a place that is secure," said civil protection official Nadia Lochard, who oversees the department that includes Port-au-Prince.
Concerns are even greater in the western reaches of Haiti's southern peninsula, where heavy flooding is predicted.
Disaster officials have extended a red alert, their highest storm warning, to all regions of the country, as the storm is expected to wind its way up the west coast of Hispaniola through storm-vulnerable Gonaives and Haiti's No 2 city, Cap-Haitien, sometime Friday.
The US National Hurricane Center in Miami announced a tropical storm warning for Haiti, along with tropical storm watches for Jamaica, the western Dominican Republic, eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas as well as Turks and Caicos.
The storm, which strengthened from a tropical depression during the day, was 490 kilometers south of Port-au-Prince with maximum winds of 75 kph. It began to make an expected right turn toward the Greater Antilles, moving north-northwest at 9 kph.
Jamaican soldiers will evacuate hundreds of people in the island's eastern region today and move them into emergency shelters ahead of the storm, Information Minister Daryl Vaz said.
"We will be going all out to make good sense prevail," he said at a news conference yesterday.
Most of the people who will be evacuated are squatters living along unstable gullies that often flood during heavy rainstorms.
Kareen Bennett, a forecaster with Jamaica's Meteorological Service, said heavy rains will lash the eastern region by tomorrow morning.
Jamaica is still struggling to recuperate from floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Nicole in late September that killed at least 13 people and caused an estimated USD 125 million in damage.
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