Death tolls rises to over 800 as Haiti digs out from Hurricane Matthew
A woman stands in a field of destroyed trees after the passing of Hurricane Matthew, in Sous Roche in Les Cayes, in Southwest Haiti, on October 6, 2016.
(HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)Hurricane Matthew left a horrifying trail of death and destruction in Haiti — killing at least 842 people and leaving tens of thousands of homeless, officials said Friday.
The staggering death toll skyrocketed as information trickled in from remote areas that had been ravaged by 145-mph winds, officials told Reuters.
President Obama urged Americans to help however they can.
“You can help make life a little bit easier for people who didn’t have a lot to begin with,” he told reporters. Scores more are still missing.
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"A tree fell on the house and flattened it, the entire house fell on us. I couldn’t get out," said driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald, 27, who lived in the village of Chantal.
He and his daughter survived. His wife of one year did not.
"People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot," the devastated dad told Reuters as his young daughter clung to his side crying, "Mommy."
The mayor of Chantal said 86 people died in the farming village, many crushed by trees.
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Coastal town Les Anglais also lost "several dozen" people, the central government representative in the region, Louis-Paul Raphael, told Reuters.
Aerial view taken by the U.N. Mission in Haiti over the town of Jeremie on Thursday, October 6, 2016.
(LOGAN ABASSI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)It was the first Category 4 storm to hit the island nation in decades, and the deadliest since Hurricane Flora in 1963, which killed an estimated 8,000 people.
“Devastation is everywhere,” Pilus Enor, mayor of Camp Perrin on the peninsula’s south shore told the Associated Press. “Every house has lost its roof. All the plantations have been destroyed. ...This is the first time we see something like this.”
Among the dead in the town of Cavaillon were a woman and her 6-year-old daughter who’d frantically abandoned their flimsy home and headed to a nearby church to seek shelter Tuesday.
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“On the way to the church, the wind took them,” said the town’s mayor, Ernst Aist.
Destroyed houses are seen after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti.
(CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS/REUTERS)Without help, more death could come.
Officials said food and water were urgently needed, noting that crops had been leveled, wells inundated by seawater and some water treatment facilities destroyed.
In Les Cayes, many people searched for clean water as they lugged mattresses and whatever belongings they were able to salvage.
“Nothing is going well,” said Jardine Laguerre, a teacher. “The water took what little money we had. We are hungry.”
A woman carries a laundry basket in an area devastated by Hurricane Matthew in Cavaillon, Haiti, October 6, 2016.
(ANDRES MARTINEZ CASARES/REUTERS)Officials with the Pan American Health Organization warned about a possible surge in cholera cases from the heavy flooding.
Haiti’s government estimated at least 350,000 people need some kind of assistance in what is likely to be the country’s worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating earthquake of January 2010.
Before hitting Haiti, the storm was blamed for four deaths in the Dominican Republic, one in Colombia and one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
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