Sunday, April 11, 2010

Preval Says Haiti in 'Constant Danger'



PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- Haitian President Rene Preval said on Saturday that Haiti remained "in constant danger" three months after a devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of at least 220,000 people and left 1.3 million without homes.

"We should consider this country to be in a state of constant danger," Preval told AFP. "We have to confront all the problems at the same time because the rainy season is coming and not only to Port-au-Prince."

However, the president pointed out his government had been doing preparatory work in Gonaives, Cayes and other cities ahead of the season.

"If we had not done that work, you would have heard of new deaths in these areas," he noted.

Preval spoke as he visited a UN camp housing about 8,000 earthquake victims located outside the Haitian capital.

The new site, which the UN says will eventually be able to house as many as 250,000 people, is called Corail and stands on 7,500 hectares (18,000 acres) of land to the north of the devastated capital Port-au-Prince.

UN officials have identified seven "high risk" camps that could be in peril during the rainy season followed by the hurricane season.

An estimated 1.3 million people were left homeless by the deadly 7.0-magnitude earthquake which leveled parts of the capital on January 12, where hundreds of thousands of people still live in some 460 makeshift camps.

Source: CNN

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