Haiti farmers in dire straits after Hurricane Sandy

Seed Daily via AFP: At an isolated farm in the town of Papaye in central Haiti, a group of farmers are counting the costs of Hurricane Sandy and trying to decide their next steps. The news from the meeting is grim.

Flooding unleashed by the massive storm killed more than 50 people and left thousands homeless in Haiti, another woe for an impoverished country still struggling to recover from a 2010 earthquake that left more than 200,000 dead.

Sandy also devastated the Caribbean nation's farming sector -- already reeling from a dry spell. "Haitian farmers were very affected by the drought, and then by the flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy," said Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the head of the Mouvement des Paysans de Papaye, an influential peasant movement. "Harvests were lost in most parts of the country. And now, there is a real risk of famine."...

Victims of Hurricane Sandy forgotten in Haiti

Terra Daily via AFP: Hurricane Sandy, the deadly storm that slammed into New York and New Jersey in October, tore through the Caribbean long before reaching America. In Haiti, many still await help.

Flooding from Sandy killed 54 people and left thousands homeless in Haiti, another woe for a country still struggling to recover from a 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, and a cholera epidemic that broke out months later and has killed more than 7,000 people.

Nearly one month after the government of President Michel Martelly declared a national emergency, scores of residents in the hard-hit town of Petit-Goave, in south-western Haiti, still live in emergency shelters.

In the Nan banann (Among the Bananas) neighborhood located between the Caiman river and the sea, residents mourn their dead outside homes still buried under layers of mud and banana trees swept in by flood waters.

"It's the Caiman river that is the cause of our misfortunes," said Elnee Prophete, one of the storm victims. "When it overflows, it sweeps away everything in its path," Prophete said, pointing to what remains of her house, buried to the roof in a reddish mud...

Hurricane Sandy on October 22, 2012, from NASA

Floods claim as many as 16 lives in Haitian city

Terra Daily via AFP: Flood waters inundated impoverished areas of Cap Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, killing as many as 16 people, including three children, city officials said Friday. "The city has been struck by disaster. There are many dead and major damage. All the populous areas are flooded," Cap Haitien Mayor Wilborde Beon told AFP by telephone.

Beon said many people had to be rescued and given shelter from the high waters, which swept through the northern city Thursday night amid heavy rains in the region. "The entrance to the city is completely flooded, all the rivers and ravines are swollen," he said, appealing for aid and support.

Preliminary estimates put the number of dead at 16, most of them when their homes collapsed in the flooding and heavy rains, the city's police chief, Kenel Pierre, told AFP. "Haitian police patrols found a number of bodies in the streets. We have seen the bodies of three children aged two or three," Pierre said...

The cross on Morne Jean, above Cap-Haitien. Shot by Rémi Kaupp, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license