Tropical storm system threatens to cause flooding and landslides in the area Haiti, where 7.2 magnitude earthquake Nearly 1,300 people were killed on Saturday (14).
Tropical Depression Grace was approaching the southern coast of Hispaniola, the island that includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, on Monday morning, bringing sustained winds of 56 km/h and higher storms, CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said.
A tropical storm is expected in the Dominican Republic and Haiti later today, Brink said, adding that 38 cm of rain is expected in some isolated areas through Tuesday.
“I am concerned about the coming storm because it may complicate the situation for us,” Jerry Chandler, head of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, said Sunday.
The agency reported that at least 1,297 people were killed and more than 5,700 injured on Sunday. These numbers are expected to increase as search and rescue efforts continue.
Agency officials said the quake destroyed 13,694 homes and damaged another 13,785.
The devastation has also pushed hospitals to the limit and closed roads, making it difficult for vital supplies to reach affected areas.
“We really need help, yesterday I was helping out in the hospital and things were getting out of hand,” volunteer Marceline Lourigoy told CNN on Sunday.
“There are not enough doctors, there are not enough medicines and we have people with serious injuries. We need urgent help before things get more complicated.”
Authorities go house to house in search of survivors – efforts that require enormous resources.
At the site of a hotel collapse, the CNN team saw a single non-working excavator at the time. There were no police or security nearby as people moved air conditioners away from the destroyed building.
The earthquake occurred at 8:30 a.m. Saturday local time at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). The epicenter was about 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) northeast of Saint-Louis-de-Sud, in the southwestern part of the country.
This site is located approximately 96 kilometers (60 miles) west of the epicenter of the catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed an estimated 220,000 to 300,000 people in 2010.
Ettant Dubin, Anne Claire Stapleton, Mohamed Tawfik, Amir Vera, Susanna Capillotto, Caitlin Ho, Elizabeth Joseph, Eric Levinson, Brandon Miller, Florencia Trucco, Michelle Velez, Lionel Vital and Theresa Waldrop contributed to this report.
(Translated text. I read here The original is in English.)
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