Food aid starts to arrive in flooded Haiti town

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Food and relief supplies began arriving in the Haitian city of Gonaives on Friday as floodwaters receded after killing 136 people in the impoverished country and sending thousands fleeing to their rooftops.

The United Nations said it would launch an appeal for emergency funds to help up to 600,000 Haitians while the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appealed for 3.8 million Swiss francs ($3.4 million) in donations for Haiti.

A freighter with food supplied by the U.N.'s World Food Program and carrying other supplies such as drinking water docked in Gonaives, where the streets were thick with mud and littered with the carcasses of drowned animals after four days of floods.

It was the first of several vessels and aircraft, including helicopters, set to arrive with aid for Gonaives, the WFP said.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where most people scrape by on less than $2 a day, has been hit by three successive storms in less than a month. Tropical Storm Fay killed more than 50 people last month while Hurricane Gustav left at least 75 people dead.

Tropical Storm Hanna this week sent up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) of muddy water pouring through Gonaives. At least 136 people died, most of them in the town, the Caribbean country's civil protection office said.

Hanna had pulled away from Haiti on Friday and was set to crash ashore on the U.S. East Coast in the Carolinas early on Saturday.

In its wake, however, came fierce Hurricane Ike, which could dip close to northern Haiti before taking aim at south Florida, Cuba or potentially the Gulf of Mexico next week.

The storms have flooded fields in Haiti and compounded the misery of a population of about 9 million struggling to cope with rising food and fuel prices.

"Right now these storms are threatening the gradual progress we were making in helping the most vulnerable communities better cope with high food and fuel prices," said Myrta Kaulard, the WFP representative in Haiti.

U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told a news conference in New York that 250,000 people had been "badly affected" in Gonaives, with some 70,000 still in shelters.

"We're expecting to announce a flash appeal in response to the problems in Haiti, possibly as early as tomorrow," Holmes said. "I can't give you a figure for how much that will be."

The world's largest disaster relief network, meanwhile, said the funds it was seeking would help support the operations of the Haitian Red Cross in the next six months.

"Essential food items, first-aid materials, vital medicines, clean drinking water and shelter are among the most urgent needs at this time, according to (Federation) specialists on the ground," the Geneva-based agency said.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Michael Christie; Editing by Jane Sutton and Bill Trott)