As Hurricane Matthew churned its way through the Caribbean and barreled toward Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba on Monday, governments and aid groups raced against time to try to soften its potentially catastrophic blow.
The Category 4 storm, packing sustained winds of up to 220 km/h, was expected to pass just east of Jamaica and near or over the southwestern tip of Haiti early Tuesday before heading to eastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
‘Life-threatening rain, wind and storm surge’
Matthew is expected “to bring life-threatening rain, wind and storm surge to portions of Haiti,” the National Hurricane Center said.
“We are looking at a dangerous hurricane that is heading into the vicinity of western Haiti and eastern Cuba,” said Richard Pasch, a senior hurricane specialist with the centre. “People who are impacted by things like flooding and mudslides hopefully would get out and relocate because that’s where we have seen loss of life in the past.”
Matthew could dump up to 63 cm of rain over much of southern Haiti, with some areas getting as much as 101 cm of rainfall, the hurricane centre warned. Eastern Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and eastern Cuba could see up to 50 cm of rain with some areas getting over 60 centimetres.
In addition, storm surges in the region could cause catastrophic flash flooding.
Crawling at just 9 km/h the storm threatens to hover enough for its winds and rain to cause great damage, especially over Haiti where deforestation exacerbates flooding and mudslides.
Haiti on Red Alert
Laura Sewell, a Canadian who works for the international charity CARE in Haiti, said aid groups and humanitarian organizations are coordinating their work with Haitian authorities and preparing the areas of the country that are most likely to be hit by Matthew.
CARE has a team working in western Haiti, said Sewell, assistant country director for CARE Haiti, speaking on the phone to RCI from capital Port-au-Prince.
(click to listen to the full interview with Laura Sewell)
Listen“Yesterday, the government declared a ‘Red Alert,’ so they started to evacuate people to hurricane shelters and they cancelled schools, and closed the airport,” Sewell said. “We’ve passed the message to people in the area that they need to move to hurricane shelters and stay at home if it’s safe to stay at home, keep food and water with them.”
And as the number of people heading for shelters increases, CARE is working to make sure that people in shelters have enough food and water, she said.
Fear of another cholera outbreak
In Haiti alone the hurricane is expected to affect over 1.2 million people, including in Port-au-Prince, which is still recovering from the devastating earthquake that hit the poorest Caribbean country in 2010, killing over 200,000 people, Sewell said.
Aid groups will need to react as soon as the hurricane hits Haiti, she said.
“The most pressing needs are actually water and food,” Sewell said. “Water because as you know, Haiti has recently had a cholera outbreak and has a persistent cholera problem since 2010, and when there is lots of rain, there is always an increased chance that cholera will break out.”
To make matters worse the hurricane could destroy people’s food stores and crops that had already suffered because of a drought brought by the El Nino weather phenomenon, she said.
“The country is doing its best to prepare for it and to be able to keep people safe beforehand but they will certainly need support afterwards to make sure that people can be able to have clean water and food and safe places to stay,” said Sewell.
With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
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