Haiti earthquake death toll reaches nearly 2,000
The death toll from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in the weekend has risen to 1,941, officials said on Tuesday.
On Saturday, the earthquake hit the southwestern part of the Caribbean nation, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the capital Port-au-Prince.
Hospitals struggled to tend to all those injured. So far, Haiti’s civil protection agency has reported that at least 9,915 people were wounded.
After the quake tore down tens of thousands of houses, a tropical storm brought torrential downpours on survivors already coping with the catastrophe.
The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF said that more than half a million children have been affected by the tragedy.
“Countless Haitian families who have lost everything due to the earthquake are now living literally with their feet in the water due to the flooding,” said Bruno Maes, the UNICEF representative in Haiti.
“Right now, about half a million Haitian children have limited or no access to shelter, safe water, health care, and nutrition.”
Over 1,800 cisterns with drinking water in the coastal community of Pestel have cracked or been destroyed in the quake.
The UN said it had allocated $8 million (€6.8 million) in emergency funds to provide essential health care, clean water, emergency shelter, and sanitation for people affected by the quake.
“We will continue to scale up our response to the hardest-hit areas,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
Source – DW News
