Death toll from Jeanne approaches 2,000; tens of thousands wail for aid

The death toll from tropical storm Jeanne threatened to reach 2,000 Wednesday, as tens of thousands of survivors wailed for food and water from rooftops where they were marooned by knee-deep moats of mud and sewage.

Four days after residents were washed from their homes, more than 1,000 bodies had been counted in Gonaives and nearly 60 in other parts of the island's northwestern province, said Dieugort Deslorges of the civil protection agency. The number of missing rose past 1,200.

So desperate are the survivors that Argentine troops in a UN aid convoy had to fire eight shots to disperse rioting outside a school before the World Food Programme and the Oxfam charity could begin handing out the first loaves of bread and plastic bottles of water.

From the air, the city looks like a sprawl of quadratic campsites, with blue tarpaulins brought in by the relief agencies offering crude shelter on some of the flat roofs, furnished with salvaged chairs, mattresses, tyres and clothing.

Trucks dumped up to 200 bodies into a mass grave at sunset Wednesday, but hundreds more were piled up outside morgues without electricity.

"It's a critical situation in terms of epidemics, because of the bodies still in the streets, because people are drinking dirty water and scores are getting injuries from debris _ huge cuts that are getting infected," said Francoise Gruloos, Haiti director for the UN Children's Fund.

Like 80 per cent of the inhabitants of this city of 200,000, Jacques and her family fled to the roof when the floodwaters that had seeped into the streets Saturday suddenly surged after nightfall, becoming rivers of debris carrying off cars, trees and the contents of houses. Mud-encrusted sculptures of cars tangled with uprooted trees and bedsteads have been left throughout the city, which is blanketed by the stench of decaying corpses and animal carcasses.

At an impromptu home next door to the Jacques family, a mere two-foot leap, teacher Previlon Pradel, who has yet to find his own family, joined dozens of neighbours sprawled under lean-tos made of sheets and sticks and atop mattresses drying in the steamy tropical sunshine. A box spring atop a wrecked BMW at the front of the house served as springboard up to the communal shelter.

The sheer volume of the need has daunted peacekeepers and those struggling to help.

"Everybody's desperate. They don't know where to go for the distributions or to get medical attention at the clinics," said a sweating and frustrated Maite Alvarez, a relief worker with the Oxfam agency that trucked in 35,000 litres of water. Crowds of the newly homeless ran willy-nilly from truck to truck and building to building, hoping that each arriving vehicle was bringing something to eat or water to slake a thirst mocked by the ubiquitous brown water.

Haitians in areas unaffected by the devastation tried to come to their countrymen's rescue. Trucks with four-foot-high wheels needed to ply Route 1 from Port-au-Prince, still knee-deep in water brought in bread rolls and plastic packets of drinking water, which volunteers tossed to the roof-dwellers.

Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist Wyclef Jean, who had been in Port-au-Prince to discuss a December benefit concert for his homeland, hitched a ride on a UN helicopter to survey the destruction.

"Every Haitian is my family," he said, adding that he hoped his visit would spur more generous donations from US friends in the recording business.

Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service