This news article is a production distributed through Caribbean News Service. It is made freely available to your media and we encourage publishing and redistribution, giving credit to Caribbean News Service (CNS).
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Apr 27 2016 – Torrential rain in impoverished Haiti killed six people over the weekend, including four children, authorities said Tuesday.
Three of the children – aged two, six and eight – were part of the same family and lost their lives when their house in the capital Port-au-Prince collapsed due to the deluge, an Interior Ministry statement said.
Another family member in the house at the time, a 41-year-old adult, also died.
In the commune of Delmas, the downpours caused a section of a wall to collapse, killing a 36-year-old man and a seven-year-old girl in a house down below.
The rain also sparked flooding in the Caribbean country, with authorities saying water mixed with waste seeped into 4,612 houses in the communes of Port-au-Prince, Cite Soleil and Cabaret, located north of the capital, authorities estimated.
The severe lack of proper infrastructure to deal with downpours regularly causes damage in the capital.
The absence of an efficient system of trash collection also complicates matters and some structures housing the poor are built without permits.
With the weather not expected to improve before Wednesday, officials are urging the population to exercise caution.
Haiti is hit by storms every year from June to November but the absence of urban planning means that heavy showers during the country’s first rainy season from April to June takes its toll on the poorest parts of the population.
