The full scale of the devastation in rural parts of storm-hit Haiti became clear as the death toll soared to nearly 900 three days after Hurricane Matthew levelled huge swaths of the country's south. As Matthew threatened the US coast on Saturday, US President Barack Obama urged Americans to mobilise in support of Haiti, where a million people were in need of assistance after the latest disaster to strike the western hemisphere's poorest nation. The number of deaths in Haiti surged to at least 877 late on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of death tolls given by officials. Authorities expect the figure to rise even further. While the capital and biggest city, Port-au-Prince, was largely spared, the south suffered devastation.
Aerial footage from the hardest-hit towns showed a ruined landscape of metal shanties with roofs blown away and downed trees everywhere. Brown mud from overflowing rivers covered the ground. Herve Fourcand, a senator for the Sud department, which felt the full force of Matthew's impact, said several localities were still cut off by flooding and mudslides. A scene of desolation greeted visitors to Jeremie, a town of 30,000 people left inaccessible until Friday. At one of the town's poorly-equipped medical centres, doctors said they are desperate for help. But it's not just the lack of medicine and equipment threatening Jeremie's hurricane-hit residents - disease is also a major hazard for the people living here.
Haiti, which sits on a hurricane path, has had its fair share of natural disasters, including 2010's devastating earthquake that demolished much of the capital. Some of its needs have been met by international aid. But the large-scale international aid programs in place since the quake have also been criticised for failing to build local capacity while spending millions on their own short-term programmes.
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