Haitian officials raised the death toll from a deadly weekend earthquake by more than 500 on Tuesday after Tropical Storm Grace forced a temporary halt to search and rescue efforts, a delay that fed growing anger and frustration among thousands who were left homeless. Grace battered southwestern Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday's quake, and officials warned some areas could get 15 inches of rain before the storm moved on. Late Tuesday afternoon, the Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll to 1,941 and the number of injured to 9,900, many of whom have had to wait for medical help lying outside in wilting heat, the AP reports.
The devastation is centered in the country’s southwestern area, where health care has reached capacity and people have lost homes and loved ones. Patience was running out in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Haitians already were struggling with the coronavirus, gang violence, worsening poverty, and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse when the quake hit. Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble, and the smell of death hung heavily over a pancaked, three-story apartment building.
A simple bed sheet covered the body of a 3-year-old girl that firefighters had found an hour earlier. Neighbor Joseph Boyer, 53, said he knew the girl's family. “The mother and father are in the hospital, but all three kids died,” he said. The bodies of the other two siblings were found earlier. Illustrating the lack of government presence, volunteer firefighters from the nearby city of Cap-Haitien had left the body out in the rain because police have to be present before a body can be taken away.
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A throng of angry, shouting men gathered in front of the collapsed building, a sign that patience was running out for people who have waited days for help from the government. The head of Haiti’s office of civil protection, Jerry Chandler, acknowledged the situation. Earthquake assessments had to be paused because of the heavy rain, “and people are getting aggressive,” Chandler said Tuesday. Some children were orphaned in the quake and some youngsters were starting to go hungry, said Carl-Henry Petit-Frère, a field manager for Save the Children, which said in a statement that it was distributing what it could to people living on the streets without protection from the wind and rain.
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