GONAIVES, Haiti - These women carry their sons as they walk on he main route to the flooded Gonaives, Haiti, yesterday. (Photo: AP)

GONAIVES, Haiti, (AFP) - Health experts in Haiti yesterday warned of epidemics in the north of the country, where some 1,013 people have died in floods, with 1,200 more missing and 918 wounded, while survivors are forced to drink, bathe and cook with water from ditches containing rotting animals and raw sewage.

"The biggest problem is the lack of potable water and a sewage system that is making the local water supply increasingly unhealthy," said Joe Fay, a public health officer at Oxfam, a non-governmental organisation.

Fay and other health experts who have visited northern Haiti, the region most battered over the weekend by Tropical Storm Jeanne, have sounded a preventive alarm, since disease-spreading conditions are prevalent among the debilitated population and the health system has broken down completely.

Fay did not rule out outbreaks of cholera or typhoid fever. "Conditions are perfect for these germs to develop," said the specialist, who has also worked in southern Haiti, where floods in May killed more than 1,400 people.

"Malnutrition, dehydration (and) diarrhoea can all kill children," the most disease-prone in this situation, Fay said.

Many areas of the city of Gonaives are still flooded and the only water available for washing and cooking is gathered in the street. People use the same water for drinking, since the price of bottled water is beyond the means of most locals.

David Dofara, a doctor with the International Red Cross, underscored "the risk of diarrhoeic diseases, such as cholera and hepatitis, posed by rotting animal and human remains".
Two Red Cross officials said that, as a health precaution, all bodies in the morgue will be photographed, numbered and promptly buried.

Dofara also raised the possibility of a long-term increase in respiratory ailments and malaria, already a plague in Haiti, due to the proliferation of mosquito larvae in the stagnant water.

The Red Cross doctor made an appeal for mass distribution of drinking water and food in Gonaives because all food products "have been contaminated by the water".

Haiti's hospital emergency room manager, Philippe Desmangles, accused the mayor of Gonaives and the federal government representative in the area, both political rivals, of hindering the flow of humanitarian aid with their "personal squabbles".

"They want to install a field hospital, but there's no place for one because the local authorities can't stop arguing," Desmangles said.

At present, there are only four clinics in the city of 250,000 inhabitants. Only the very critically ill are admitted. Dozens of injured people wait in vain for a doctor to see them.

The town hall has been converted into a makeshift maternity ward and emergency room since the local hospital was gutted by the floods. Doctors and nurses make do with what little medical supplies and equipment are left.

Argentine UN peacekeepers, who were among the tens of thousands who lost their belongings in the floods, treat only superficial wounds and evacuate more serious cases to Port-au-Prince. On Wednesday, they attended to about 450 injured people.

Food distribution began in earnest on Wednesday. But, as in the case of medical supplies, it is insufficient and gives rise to disappointment. Many people have not had a real meal since Sunday, and the locals are growing increasingly restless over the Haitian government's and the international community's slow response to the catastrophe.

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