Only plastic between Haiti homeless and brewing storms
Olesya Dmitracova of Reuters Alertnet reports on the approaching seasonal rains and hurricanes in Haiti and the impact that these may have on hundred of thousands of vulnerable people, living in flimsy makeshift shelters, after last month's earthquake.
"Port-au-Prince is built on vulnerable small slopes and mountains. With the rains, these slopes start softening up and cause mudslides like we have seen in the past, causing schools to collapse and more deaths," Margareta Wahlstöm, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, told Reuters AlertNet.
According to Reuters Alertnet, Maryam Golnaraghi, who heads the disaster risk reduction program at the U.N. weather body, the World Meteorological Organization, has been investigating whether it would be possible to anticipate the floods by moving the displaced people to higher and safer terrain.