HAITI: Tropical Storm Emily crawls towards Haiti, lashes Hispaniola with heavy winds and rain

Record ID: 332915

  • Title: HAITI: Tropical Storm Emily crawls towards Haiti, lashes Hispaniola with heavy winds and rain
  • Date: 5th August 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF DISPLACEMENT CAMP VILLAMBETA, NORTH OF PORT-AU-PRINCE
  • Embargoed: 20th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Haiti, Haiti
  • Country: Haiti
  • Topics: Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA6QV05PO4ZPO584UJ3VLO16A40
  • Story Text: Tropical Storm Emily slowed to a crawl on its path toward Haiti on Wednesday (August 04) , but it was still taking aim at the chronically poor nation struggling to recover from last year's devastating earthquake.
    The storm, which had already unleashed heavy rains over both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, was packing sustained winds of 50 miles per hour (85 kph). Its center was due to pass over southwest Haiti early on Thursday before churning across extreme eastern Cuba Thursday night.
    Emily, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, posed no immediate threat to oil and gas production facilities in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. But if it survives its encounter with Hispaniola, the mountainous island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the Miami-based hurricane center said it was likely to intensify later this week.
    About 600,000 Haitians are still living under makeshift tents and tarpaulins following the January 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and shattered the capital, Port-au-Prince.
    In Camp Villambeta in Tabarre just northeast of Port-au-Prince, some 450 families braced for the worst.
    "As for the government official, no one showed up. The mayor only came once because they have a shelter office inside the camp but as for the (federal) government, forget it," Camp Villambeta spokesperson Justin Marcel told Reuters TV.
    The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said Emily could dump as much as 20 inches (50 cm) of rain on parts of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
    Haiti is especially vulnerable to life-threatening flash floods and mudslides because of what experts describe as its near-total deforestation.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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