Haiti death toll hits 1,419 as tropical storm Grace threatens more destruction

The death toll caused by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake to hit Haiti has climbed to 1,419 people, with nearly 7,000 others injured.

The quake, which occurred 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince on Saturday morning, triggered landslides and the total collapse of two communities.

Around 7,000 homes were destroyed and nearly 5,000 damaged, including hospitals, schools, offices and churches in what is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Officials say that as many as 30,000 families have been left homeless in the wake of the disaster and there are still hundreds of people missing.

Drone footage of the stricken island showed structures turned to rubble, and swathes of towns such as Les Caynes, on the Haitian coast, almost turned to dust.

Rescuers were also seen searching for survivors before the arrival of a tropical storm, Grace, which was expected to reach Haiti on Monday night.

Officials said it could bring strong winds, heavy rain, rough seas, landslides and flooding – which will further complicate rescue efforts. Up to 15 inches of rain could soak parts of the country.

Henrietta Fore, the executive director for Unicef, told reporters that many Haitians were in desperate need of medical attention, clean water and shelter – with families in Les Caynes forced to sleep on a football field after the collapse of their homes.

“Little more than a decade on, Haiti is reeling once again,” said Ms Fore said, referring to the 2010 earthquake, which killed an estimated 200,000 people in and around the capital.

“And this disaster coincides with political instability, rising gang violence, alarmingly high rates of malnutrition among children, and the COVID-19 pandemic — for which Haiti has received just 500,000 vaccine doses, despite requiring far more.”

Haiti, which has a population of 11m, only received its first batch of vaccines last month from the United Nations.

In Martissant, on Haiti’s southern coast, local officials were forced to negotiate with local gangs to allow a UN convoy of aid and humanitarian workers though.

The earthquake came just a month after the 7 July assassination of President Jovenel Moise, a 53-year-old former businessman who took office in 2017.

He was killed when a heavily armed group of men stormed his home, seriously wounding his wife, Martine Moise.

Prime minister and acting president Ariel Henry told reporters on Sunday he was declaring a one-month state of emergency for the whole of Haiti following the quake, which was the worst in 11 years.

“We salute the dignity, the resilience effort of the victims and their ability to start over,” said Mr Henry, as the first aid convoys reached the worst-affected communities.

“From my observations, I deduce that Haitians want to live and progress. Let us unite to offer these people a living environment conducive to development.”

The prime minister also promised that the pace of relief efforts would be increased.

“We will act with greater speed,” Mr Henry said on Twitter.

“Aid management will be sped up. We are going to increase our energies tenfold to reach, in terms of assistance, the maximum number of victims possible.”

Doctors say that injured people are continuing to pour into the country’s hospitals and clinics.

“We are saturated, and people keep coming in,” Michelet Paurus, a doctor at Les Cayes’ general hospital told the Associated Press, and added that they were now facing shortages of medicine and supplies.

Before the earthquake, Haiti was already facing political instability, rising instances of violence, poverty and limited access to vaccines for Covid — with the first batch from the US only arriving in recent days.

Additional reporting from The Associated Press

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