Caribbean flood victims buried as survivors struggle
JIMANI, Dominican Republic – Dominican troops buried bodies on a tiny island surrounded by crocodiles Saturday as doctors warned of health hazards from shallow mass graves holding some of the 1,100 victims killed in floods along the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Survivors searched for food and shelter from a blistering sun that raised temperatures to 95 degrees. A weak earthquake hit in the disaster zone in the south-central part of the island of Hispaniola, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
Venezuela sent a planeload of food, clothing and medicine along with doctors and disaster aid workers to Haiti.
A Spanish Red Cross plane left Madrid Saturday for the Dominican Republic, a former Spanish colony, carrying 12 tons of relief equipment including water-purification gear, cooking kits and two large tents to set up field hospitals.
Aid workers and troops from a U.S.-led multinational force in Haiti were trying to reach villagers cut off days ago when torrents and mudslides buried entire communities.
Among them was La Quarenta, a neighborhood of the Dominican border town of Jimani, population 13,000, where all that remains are palm trees, lopsided headstones in a cemetery and the cement foundations and chunks of wood from uprooted houses.
“We were sleeping and didn’t hear the water coming in, then I felt it on my face and tried to get out with my family. And that’s the last thing I remember,” said Alexandro Novas, 35.
He was found the next day, Tuesday, two miles from his home, with gashes in his legs. His wife was killed, and his two children, ages 5 and 3, were presumed dead.
“Now I don’t have my family and I don’t have a house to live. I’m lost,” said Novas. He and 500 others from La Quarenta have taken over an abandoned government housing project, where the buildings – roofless concrete shells – are upwind of the stench of rotting bodies.
On Wednesday, Dominican authorities stopped trying to identify bodies and said they were just burying victims where they found them.