Haitian tent cities brace for huge tropical storm

Source: Telegraph

Haitian tent cities brace for huge tropical storm
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in squalid makeshift camps have hunkered down as lashing rain and wind from the outer bands of Tropical Storm Emily hit the quake-stricken country.

7:00AM BST 04 Aug 2011

US weather experts warned of "torrential rain" and "life-threatening flash floods and mud slides" once the brunt of Emily reaches Haiti, compounding the misery for the impoverished Caribbean nation still recovering from a January 2010 earthquake.

Some 300,000 Haitians still living in makeshift camps almost 19 months after the quake may have to battle up to 20 inches of rain cascading down muddy, denuded hillsides.

Haitian officials have raised a red alert and called for the evacuations of tent cities at risk, many perched on hillsides long since stripped bare of any trees, chopped down to use as fuel and building materials.

Authorities were spreading the word and "are asking people in refugee camps... to evacuate vulnerable locations," said Haiti's civil defence chief Alta Jean-Baptiste.



Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/8680639/Haitian-tent-cities-brace-for-huge-tropical-storm.html

Lighting a candle for all our relations in Haiti...