First aid ship arrives in flooded Haitian city

A ship arrived today in Gonaives, Haiti carrying 33 tons of relief supplies provided by the U.N. This is the first know aid to be provided to the tens of thousands of people who have gone without little food or clean water for four days. Argentine soldiers work over night repairing the pier that Tropical Storm Hanna tore holes in, so the ship would be able to dock today. The aid that the U.N. supplied consisted of bottled water, water-purification tablets, high-energy biscuits, cooking oil and rice. The soldiers are part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission set up for Haiti, helped to distribute the biscuits and water within hours to the shelters where 40,000 people desperately waited. The floodwaters caused by Hanna took out more than half the homes in Haiti’s fourth largest city. These floodwaters along with the muddy wreckage’s have resulted in 137 deaths in Haiti as of Friday September 5, 2008. Along with this disaster comes a new one with another category 3 hurricane expected to hit the north part of Haiti where the rivers flow into Gonaives. Haiti’s government has few resources to help and their rescue convoys have been blocked by the floodwaters. The U.S. government has helped by sending a plane out of Miami Thursday to the U.S. Coast Guard where they provided enough supplies for 20,000 people. The U.S. provides supplies such as health kits, plastic sheeting and water jugs. This storm caused so much damage that the only access to getting the supplies needed is through air with all the bridge’s collapsed and roads washed up. Other country’s plan to help out this weekend by supplying Haiti’s with supplies needed. At least 102 of the Haitians who died were in Gonaives. About 250,000 people have been affected in the region and 54,000 people are living in shelters across the country. Many people say this is a terrible site to see with so much destruction and not enough relief.