Cavaillon: Haitian officials slowly count the dead and disappeared in remote villages on Thursday, after the toll of the awesome earthquake last weekend passed 2,000 and Prime Minister Ariel Henry warned the Caribbean facing the front.
In the small town of Cavaillon, local officials curled up from paper where they recorded the number of damaged houses, schools and churches in each village around them, along with the number of dead and lost people.
“We think there are still corpses in the ruins because we can kiss them from the bottom of the debris,” said Jean Mary Naissant, one of the officials of Cavaillon, who is near the southern city of Les Cayes, one of the worst areas hit by the earthquake.
The Haitian Civil Protection Agency, who coordinated the emergency response, said that at the end of Wednesday, the death toll from a large 72 earthquake on Saturday has increased to 2,189, with most deaths in the south of the country, and that the injured amount reached 12,200.
The poorest country in America, Haiti is still recovering from the 2010 earthquake killed by more than 200,000.
The last disaster runs only a few weeks after President Jovenel Moise was killed on July 7, dropping the nation of 11 million into political turmoil.
According to calculations for Cavaillon and small villages that belong to him, there are 53 fatalities and more than 2,700 others are injured in the area.
But there are still 21 people countless for six days after the earthquake, local official said.
Residents have protested on Monday to demand more help from digging buildings that collapse, said Naissant, but government assistance has not arrived from the capital, around 180 km (110 miles) to the east.
The village market and nearby hotels are very crowded with people when the earthquake struck on Saturday morning, reduced the area to a large stack of cement which was destroyed and a crooked iron.
Residents have succeeded in recovering two bodies from the site, said Jimmy Amazan, another local official, but a stench that comes from under the stack during rescue efforts suggested beyond the reach.
Prime Minister Henry said in video messages on Wednesday that the whole country physically and mentally destroyed.
“Our hearts tear; some of our colleagues are still under debris,” he said, appealing to the nation that had problems to unite during the crisis.
“The coming days will be difficult and often painful.” In Boileau, a agricultural village of about 20 minutes drive from Cavaillon, residents say that officials have not arrived to document the victims or destroy buildings, making them wonder whether the damage is part of an official record.
Renette Petithomme, a local police officer, stood on the grass outside his house which collapsed with the toddler daughter.
He was worried: his father had departed earlier on the day for the capital Port-au-Prince to seek medical care for head injuries supported when the house wall fell, but the public bus was broken on the way.
“Since the earthquake, he lost his mind, difficulty talking and walking,” he said, adding that the family finally decided to send him to the capital for care after learning that all the nearest hospitals were full.
A few days since the earthquake, a little assistance has arrived in remote areas in the south of the country, according to residents and witness Reuters.
At Camp-Perrin, another rural city of Les Cayes, more than 100 people were moved, including children and residents of disabled, camping in the fields under the cover of the tree after their homes were destroyed by the earthquake.
Mudslide from two nights Heavy rain earlier this week some blocked the main road to the area.
Every precipitation that can lead to roads that cannot be passed, the local residents said.