"The death toll is rising on an hourly basis as aid workers and authorities get into these really hard-hit regions where not only communication and power were knocked out, but the roads were knocked out, so there has really been no way in," CNN International Correspondent Shasta Darlington reported from Port-au-Prince on Saturday morning.

"Four people are missing, 211 are injured and more than 60,000 people are now displaced from the killer storm," he said.

"We do not know the exact number; we cannot find all the people," Haitian senator Herve Fourcand, told CNN on Saturday.

Other media outlets report much higher deaths. A count by Reuters, based on information from local civil protection officials, put the death toll well over 800. "It's only now that we're beginning to really understand the extent of the devastation," Darlington said. A man stands in the remnants of a house destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in the southern town of Les Cayes on Monday, October 10. Matthew wreaked havoc in Haiti, killing hundreds, destroying homes and knocking out electricity in the impoverished Caribbean nation. More than 1.4 million people are in need of urgent assistance, a UN official says. Two young men who lost their homes awake from a tent in the courtyard of a school where they took shelter in Port Salut on October 10. A woman sits in debris where her house once stood in Les Cayes on October 10. A group works to clear debris from the streets in Les Anglais on October 10. A man uses salvaged material to build a makeshift roof for his damaged house in Port-a-Piment on October 10. People sick with cholera receive medical assistance at a hospital in Jeremie on October 10. The destruction from Matthew has accelerated the cholera epidemic in Haiti and undermined strides made in fighting the waterborne disease, the country's leader says. People cross one of the many southern coastal rivers where bridges were knocked out or damaged near Port-a-Piment on October 10. People pass damaged buildings in a seaside fishing neighborhood of Port Salut on Sunday, October 9. People bathe and wash clothes in a river that runs through Roche-à-Bateaux on October 9. Concerns are rising in the storm's aftermath about cholera, caused by the ingestion of contaminated water or food. US soldiers unload bags of food from a helicopter in the hard-hit coastal city of Jeremie on October 9. Worshippers pray at a Jeremie church destroyed by Matthew on October 9. A cholera patient receives treatment at a state hospital in Jeremie on October 9. Family members react during the funeral of Roberto Laguerre, 32, on Saturday, October 8, in Jeremie. Laguerre was killed when the hurricane struck. Andrenne Joseph dries her clothes near the remains of her house in Jeremie on October 8. Residents of Jeremie wait on the shore October 8 as a boat with water and food from the "Mission of Hope" charity arrives. Jeremie appears to be the epicenter of Haiti's growing humanitarian crisis in the wake of the storm. Corn salvaged from destroyed crops dries in the sun Saturday after Hurricane Matthew swept through Jeremie. People unload food and water from a "Mission of Hope" charity boat Saturday after Hurricane Matthew swept through Jeremie. An aerial view of damage to the small village of Casanette near Baumond, Haiti on Saturday. The full scale of the devastation in rural Haiti is becoming clear in the days after Hurricane Matthew leveled huge swaths of the country's south. Haitians gather along a flooded street in Haiti on Friday, October 7. Palm trees lie flattened on the ground after high winds knocked them over. Rubble lies in the street in the aftermath of the storm. Residents carry a coffin containing the remains of a pregnant woman, a victim of Hurricane Matthew, in Jeremie on Friday, October 7. People across southwest Haiti were digging through the wreckage of their homes Friday, salvaging what they could of their meager possessions. An aerial view shows destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew in Jeremie, Haiti, on Friday, October 7. The damage from Hurricane Matthew was especially brutal in southern Haiti, where sustained winds of 130 mph punished the country. Damaged homes are shown on Friday, October 7, in Haiti, where the death toll is in the hundreds. A young man stands near the cathedral damaged by Hurricane Matthew, in Jeremie, Haiti, on October 7. A man dries toys recovered from the debris left by Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti, on Thursday, October 6. A girl washes mud from her feet after Hurricane Matthew passed through Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 6. Fallen trees litter the ground outside a damaged church in Les Cayes on October 6. Hundreds of people have been killed in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said, with the death toll expected to rise. Girls wade through a flooded street in Les Cayes on October 6. Two days after the storm, authorities and aid workers in Haiti still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years. Saint Anne Church in Les Cayes is reduced to ruins. In the wake of the storm, the Electoral Commission postponed the country's presidential election, which had been scheduled for Sunday. Men push a motorbike through a flooded street in Leogane on October 5. More than 300,000 people are in shelters across the country, the United Nations said.

 A man carries a woman across a river at Petit Goave on October 5. A bridge collapsed because of the storm. A woman cleans her flooded home following the overflowing of La Rouyonne River on October 5 in Leogane. Residents could face risks from standing water. Haiti is still recovering from a cholera outbreak after the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nice Simon, the mayor of Tabarre, holds a baby on October 3, as she helps evacuate the area along a river. Matthew struck the southwestern peninsula with winds of 125 mph (200 kph) and heavy rains that flattened homes, flooded villages, razed crops, swept away cattle and cut off the parts of the island. The U.S. State Department warned citizen travelers of "serious problems concerning emergency response/medical care infrastructure and crime in Haiti," in a statement released Friday. Worse still, there are warnings the aftermath could worsen the nation's cholera epidemic , which killed at least 10,000 people after the 2010 earthquake. "Cholera is the biggest problem right now," Fourcand said. "We need clean water. The water here is so dirty." An estimated 500,000 children live in the areas in the southern region most affected by Hurricane Matthew, UNICEF said in a statement. Agency representative Marc Vincent, who is in Haiti, said they are "still far from having a full picture of the extent of the damage" and "are hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst." UN officials said the hurricane is the country's worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating 2010 earthquake. "The focus right now is getting aid to these people who were affected. So they have to get in clean water, they have to get in food and shelter," Darlington said.</s>HAITIANS in the areas worst hit by Hurricane Matthew are desperately awaiting assistance six days after the storm, as concerns grow about potential cholera outbreaks.

 Vince DeGennaro, a Port-au-Prince-based doctor who’s the medical director for the country’s only medical emergency helicopter program, has been flying medical relief flights into towns along Haiti’s devastated southwest coast in the aftermath of the storm.

 “These towns on the southwestern coast, it’s near total destruction. Just about every building was knocked down, even concrete ones,” he said. “It’s quite frightening to see from the air.”

 On Sunday, he flew into the town of Roche-a-Bateau, where he said 90 per cent of the buildings had been destroyed by the storm, including the concrete school and church buildings, leaving the residents with no shelter.

 “People are just sleeping outside and that leads to all sorts of problems with disease,” he told CNN.

 In those conditions, he said, the threat of a cholera outbreak was a “huge concern.”

 The disease, which is spread through water or food contaminated Vibrio cholerae bacteria, can cause severe diarrhea and vomiting, which leads to extreme dehydration. It can swiftly result in outbreaks, and patients who are not treated quickly can die within hours.

 Cholera cases have been reported in Randel, in southwestern Haiti, UNICEF reported in a situation update Monday, while DeGennaro said there had been dozens of cholera deaths in the southwestern town of Port-a-Piment.

 “For cholera, every one person who has it tends to infect two or three people, so it’s frightening,” he said.

 A cholera epidemic killed at least 10,000 people in Haiti when it was accidentally introduced by UN peacekeepers following the 2010 earthquake.

 Matthew wreaked havoc as it made landfall in Haiti on Tuesday, killing hundreds, displacing thousands, destroying homes and knocking out electricity, water supply and communications in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

 While international aid workers on the ground say this is the worst disaster to hit Haiti since the 2010 earthquake, it is still unclear how many people may have been killed by the Category 4 storm.

 Haiti’s official death toll has risen to 372, according to the country’s Civil Protection Agency. However, given the strict verification process for victims, the actual numbers are likely much higher. A person is only counted as dead when their identities have been verified by the National Identification Office.

 The hardest hit of Haiti’s 10 regional departments, Grand-Anse, has reported even more dead than the official national toll. UNICEF said Monday that 475 people had been killed in Grand-Anse, citing local emergency operations authorities who have been tallying the dead from different cities.

 DeGennaro said the mayor of Roche-a-Bateau told him that 90 people had been killed in the town alone. DeGennaro said he expected the final death toll to number in the thousands.</s>Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) Haiti's leader says Hurricane Matthew's assault has accelerated the already existing cholera epidemic and undermined the strides made in fighting the disease.

"A lot of effort has been made to avoid the spread of this epidemic," said Interim President Jocelerme Privert, "but the hurricane has accelerated it."

Thirteen people have died from cholera since Matthew hit Haiti, he said. This tragedy -- which has killed more than 370 people -- comes after a devastating cholera outbreak in 2010 . The United Nations says it has been involved in trying to eradicate the disease in Haiti.

Haiti has one of the highest rates of cholera in the world, with almost 10,000 people dead from the disease since 2010 and more than 27,000 suspected cases have been reported this year -- an estimated 1 in 3 of them children, UNICEF said.

Before the hurricane, only 1 in 3 people in Haiti had access to proper latrines and less than 3 in 5 had access to safe water. In rural areas, these rates go down to 1 in 4 for sanitation and 1 in 2 for water. Diarrhea is one of the main killers of children under 5 in the country, UNICEF said.

The uptick in cholera cases, confirmed and suspected, has been most apparent in the departments of Sud and Grand-Anse, according to Stephane De Rengerves, senior executive liaison officer with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. There are 10 departments, or regional administrative units, in Haiti.

Rene Domersant, Health Ministry representative at Haiti's National Emergency Center, told CNN there are currently 128 confirmed cases of cholera and at least 160 suspected cases for Sud, Nipps and Grand'Anse departments in the south of the country.

All patients, with either confirmed or suspected cases for cholera, are under observation and receiving medical care.

In one hospital in Jeremie, which is in Grand-Anse, there are at least 40 suspected cases of cholera since Hurricane Matthew hit. The Saint Antoine Hospital received hundreds of patients over the weekend, most of them suffering injuries from flying debris rather than cholera.

Officials said they are out of anesthetics and antibiotics, and haven't gotten any aid, despite the massive damage the Hurricane caused the facility, and aid in the area.

"Quick decisions and strong leadership can make or break relief operations. Right now, 1 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance. Lifesaving measures such as medical aid, clean water and appropriate information should remain the priority at this stage." said Dr. Unni Krishnan, director of Save the Children's Emergency Health Unit in Haiti on Monday in a press release.

"Flooding and contaminated water caused by the storm pose a huge threat to survivors including thousands of children. Clean water and medicine delivered to the hardest hit areas in the next 24 to 48 hours is a key priority."

'Frightening to see from the air'

Vince DeGennaro, a Port-au-Prince-based doctor who is the medical director for the country's only medical emergency helicopter program, has been flying medical relief flights since Thursday into towns along Haiti's devastated southwest coast in the aftermath of the storm.

DeGennaro, who has lived and worked in Haiti since 2012, is medical director of the Haiti Air Ambulance and president of Innovating Health International, a nonprofit that is "dedicated to treating chronic disease and dealing with women's health issues in developing countries."

On Sunday, he flew into the town of Roche-a-Bateau, where he said 90% of the buildings had been destroyed by the storm, including the concrete school and church buildings, leaving the residents with no shelter.

"People are just sleeping outside and that leads to all sorts of problems with disease," he said.

In those conditions, he said, the threat of a cholera outbreak was a "huge concern."

DeGennaro said there had been dozens of cholera deaths in the southwestern town of Port-a-Piment.

"For cholera, every one person who has it tends to infect two or three people, so it's frightening," he said.

Matthew wreaked havoc as it made landfall in Haiti on Tuesday, killing hundreds, displacing thousands, destroying homes and knocking out electricity, water supply and communications in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

While international aid workers on the ground say this is the worst disaster to hit Haiti since the 2010 earthquake, it is still unclear how many people may have been killed by the Category 4 storm.

Haiti's official death toll has risen to 372, according to the country's Civil Protection Agency. However, given the strict verification process for victims, the actual numbers are likely much higher. A person is only counted as dead when their identity has been verified by the National Identification Office.

The hardest hit of Haiti's 10 regional departments, Grand-Anse, has reported even more dead than the official national toll. UNICEF said Monday that 475 people had been killed in Grand-Anse, citing local emergency operations authorities who have been tallying the dead from different cities.

DeGennaro said the mayor of Roche-a-Bateau told him that 90 people had been killed in the town alone. DeGennaro said he expected the final death toll to number in the thousands.

More than 1.4 million people are in need of urgent assistance, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien said Monday.

"The widespread devastation, flooding, displacement and crop loss hit at a time when Haitians were already challenged by an increase in cholera cases and severe food insecurity and malnutrition," said O'Brien.

"In the worst-hit departments many towns have been virtually wiped out," he said. "Families that were fortunate to survive the hurricane now find themselves in a struggle to survive, with thousands of homes and livelihoods washed away by the storm."

Still waiting for help

In Les Cayes, a port city in one of the worst-hit areas, residents told CNN they had yet to receive any government help in their efforts to recover from the disaster.

"I saw the water rising up to my waist. Tin roofs flying everywhere. Then a wall came down behind me," said resident Angelo Joseph as he showed the wreckage of his destroyed home to CNN.

Holly Frew, an emergency communications officer at the disaster relief organization CARE, said the damage in the city was "hard to believe, even as I see it with my own eyes."

"Matthew has uprooted massive trees and plunged them into buildings. Homes are utterly destroyed. And downed power lines litter the streets," she said.

"There are a few glimpses of life as it was -- some markets have re-opened -- but the people here have such a long road ahead."

With roads and bridges washed out, the towns in the southwest have been inaccessible by road for days, and many remained out of reach except by air, said DeGennaro.

"The first challenge has been access to some of these remote communities. We still can't reach some of the most affected areas by car," Marc Vincent, UNICEF's head of mission in Haiti, told CNN.

On the ground, medical staff were finding many patients with soft tissue injuries, lacerations and broken bones from flying debris, said DeGennaro.

Six days after the storm, the wounds were starting to develop serious infections, adding tetanus to the list of medical concerns, he said.

The priority was getting food, water and shelter to affected populations, to try to prevent outbreaks of disease compounding Haiti's misery, he said.

"I expect the cholera to increase and other illnesses related to dehydration in the short term, and malnutrition in the medium term," he said.

On the banks of the River Grande D'Anse, Angela Joseph was one of several women trying to scrub their clothes clean.

During the hurricane, a storm surge swept through the plains and pasture lands on the edge of Jeremie, carrying enormous trees and flipping vehicles and trucks. Joseph's chickens and goats were all killed, and now she has no food for herself and her three children.

Because of the cholera danger, people were cautioned not to drink river water. Women said they've had to buy small plastic bags of water for drinking when they can afford it.

"I haven't eaten all day," Joseph said, as she scrubbed clothes in a plastic bin.</s>Hurricane Matthew: Haiti death toll hits 1,000 as victims are buried in mass graves

Posted

As the death toll from Hurricane Matthew in Haiti rises to 1,000 and cholera spreads in the devastated south-west, the nation has started to bury its dead in mass graves, an official says.

The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday (local time), bringing 233 kilometre-per-hour winds and torrential rains.

Numbers from local officials showed 1,000 people were killed by the storm in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

The official death toll from the central civil protection agency is 336, a slower count because officials must visit each village to confirm the numbers.

Authorities had to start burying the dead in mass graves in Jeremie as the bodies were starting to decompose, said Kedner Frenel, the most senior central government official in the Grand'Anse region on Haiti's western peninsula.

Mr Frenel said 522 people died in Grand'Anse alone.

A tally of death reported by mayors from 15 of 18 municipalities in Sud Department on the south side of the peninsula showed 386 people there.

In the rest of the country, 92 people died, the same tally showed.

Mr Frenel said there was great concern about the cholera spreading, and that authorities were focused on getting water, food and medication to the thousands of people living in shelters.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country over the weekend to repair treatment centres and reach the epicentre of one outbreak.

Survivors persevere

Despite the loss, survivors packed what remained of the city's churches on Sunday, many seated in pews under open sky because Matthew ripped away roofs and even walls of the sanctuaries.

At least one was so badly damaged that worshippers set up an altar and prayed outside.

Jameson Pierre, 22, saw at least one bright side of the devastation.

"There will be lots and lots of jobs since so many homes were knocked down. I've been working for the last three days straight," he said.

The first three of five cargo planes of humanitarian aid from the United States have arrived at the airport in the capital Port of Prince.

They were carrying 480 metric tons of relief supplies, including 20,000 hygiene kits, 18,000 sets of kitchen utensils for cooking, 40,000 blankets and 500 rolls of plastic sheeting.

AP/Reuters

Topics: storm-disaster, poverty, weather, cyclone, disasters-and-accidents, cyclones, haiti</s>Two girls play amid the rubble after Hurricane Matthew in a street of Port-a-Piment, Haiti, October 9, 2016. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti started burying some of its dead in mass graves in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, a government official said on Sunday, as cholera spread in the devastated southwest and the death toll from the storm rose to 1,000 people.

The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rains that left 1.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

A Reuters tally of numbers from local officials showed that 1,000 people were killed by the storm in Haiti, which has a population of about 10 million and is the poorest country in the Americas.

The official death toll from the central civil protection agency is 336, a slower count because officials must visit each village to confirm the numbers.

Authorities had to start burying the dead in mass graves in Jeremie because the bodies were starting to decompose, said Kedner Frenel, the most senior central government official in the Grand'Anse region on Haiti's western peninsula.

Frenel said 522 people were killed in Grand'Anse alone. A tally of deaths reported by mayors from 15 of 18 municipalities in Sud Department on the south side of the peninsula showed 386 people there. In the rest of the country, 92 people were killed, the same tally showed.

Frenel said there was great concern about cholera spreading, and that authorities were focused on getting water, food and medication to the thousands of people living in shelters.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country over the weekend to repair treatment centers and reach the epicenter of one outbreak.</s>MOSCOW – The UN is ringing the alarm over a possible cholera outbreak in Haiti, as the number of disease cases is on the rise in the troubled Caribbean nation after disastrous hurricane Matthew swept through the country killing roughly 900 people.

On Saturday, Haitian authorities reported that cholera killed 13 people in the southwest of the nation that had suffered the worst blow from the catastrophic Category 4 hurricane.

Six casualties were reported in Randel, an isolated town set in the mountains in the heart of the Tiburon peninsula and seven others were said to have died in Anse-d’Ainault, a town located on the country’s western coast.

Cholera is an infectious disease that spreads through water supplies and causes diarrhea in patients, leading to severe dehydration and subsequent death of patients. In some cases, the infection kills a patient within a few hours.

The vicious disease was believed to have been carried inadvertently to the Caribbean nation by UN peacekeepers in the aftermath of the major earthquake that left the country in ruins in 2010. Since then, hundreds of thousands people suffered from the disease with over 9,000 of them eventually dying.

In 2016, some 240 have died of Cholera, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund stated on Friday.

Now, the major concern for Haitian authorities is that poor sanitary conditions in the country, which have been deteriorated by complete destruction of critical infrastructure such as water supplies, would cause the rapid spread of the disease.

“People have started dying,” Eli Pierre Celestin of the state health ministry said, noting that rescue operations are hampered by the remoteness of the affected regions and the lack of personnel needed to address the possible outbreak.

A total of 62 people were diagnosed with cholera in the aftermath of the hurricane, according to official data. Celestin said that outbreaks have been registered in Port-a-Piment and Les Anglais in the southwestern tip of the peninsula.

“Hurricane Matthew is feared to significantly worsen the situation and increase the risk of a larger outbreak,” UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund said in a statement.

Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that a surge in disease cases will continue into 2017.

Meanwhile, people in the affected areas lack food and medical assistance. French humanitarian organization CARE estimated that up to a million people are in dire need of urgent assistance.

Still the international community has failed to keep up with providing people with basic supplies, locals say.

“The government is not giving us anything,” Donny St Germain, a pastor at El Shaddai Ministries International, told Al Jazeera. “The international community continues to do inspections while people are dying of hunger — and so right now, we need supplies.”

Matthew, classified as a Category 4 hurricane at the time of landfall, ripped through Haiti on Tuesday, killing some 877 people. The death toll is increasing, as scores of people have been reported missing.

After leaving Haiti, Matthew moved to the US’ eastern coast, raking coastal Florida and Georgia before making landfall in South Carolina on Saturday morning. (PNA/Sputnik)</s>Matthew leveled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, with victims pleading for aid to arrive quickly.

Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis that requires a "massive response" from the international community, the United Nations chief said Monday, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid following last week's battering by Hurricane Matthew.

Matthew leveled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, with victims pleading for aid to arrive quickly.

The United Nations has launched a $120 million flash appeal to cover the needs in Haiti for the next three months.

"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map," he said.

"These numbers and needs are growing as more affected areas are reached."

After pummeling Haiti on October 4 as a monster Category 4 storm, packing winds of 145 miles (230 kilometers) per hour, Matthew slammed into the southeastern United States, where it killed 20 people.

In Haiti, more than 300 schools have been damaged, while crops and food reserves have been destroyed, Ban said.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien said the hurricane had triggered the worst humanitarian crisis in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.

The department of Grande Anse in Haiti's southwest, which took a direct hit, was the most devastated area, with 198 dead, 97 injured and 99,400 people staying in temporary shelters.

More than 175,500 are in shelters elsewhere in the country.

Deliveries of supplies were hamstrung by cut roads and communications.

"I understand of course the frustration," Jean-Luc Poncelet, the country representative for the UN's World Health Organization, said after arriving at the airport outside Jeremie, one of the worst-hit cities.

But, he said, the storm's impact in the south and west of the Tiburon Peninsula had been "really catastrophic."

"When you have no means of communication, no radio, no telephone, no roads and even a helicopter can't land -- this is what explains the massive delay," he told AFP.

American military helicopters were unloading boxes of supplies from the United States Agency for International Development to be stored by the UN in Jeremie before being taken to other parts of the south for distribution.

An official at the airport who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media said nearly 20 tons of supplies -- tarpaulins, rice, cooking oil and hygiene kits -- were being brought in.

That added to 47 tons already brought in by US military helicopters from the capital Port-au-Prince.

But getting aid to Haitians now reduced to drinking unclean water and living in roofless houses will be challenging.

On a main road crossing the mountainous center of the peninsula, residents of some villages blocked roads with trees, rocks and other storm debris in an effort to stop aid convoys from passing through without delivering supplies.

Haiti began a three-day period of mourning on Sunday, as it grapples with a worsening cholera outbreak in the storm-hit areas.

Matthew hit when Haitians were already struggling with the intestinal disease spread by contaminated food and water, with more than 500 new cases each week.

UN peacekeepers have been blamed for introducing the disease to Haiti, where it has killed 10,000 people since October 2010.

While some towns and villages reported an apparent spike in infections since the storm, Poncelet said "the number of cases of cholera that we have confirmed are low."

He declined to give a number, but said there were "tens" of cases in one area of the peninsula.

Still, he said the World Health Organization had to "be careful" about cholera and other diseases that cause diarrhea, leading to victims becoming dangerously dehydrated.

Though evaluation teams were still working to get a precise picture of the health situation, medical supplies were being brought in for quicker distribution, he said.

"The population is very anxious," Poncelet said. "They haven't had any systematic support over the last days," he said.

Mourad Wahba, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, warned that the emergency response should focus on delivering aid to smaller rural communities, where many families survive by subsistence farming and have had all their crops washed away.

If aid is only delivered to cities such as Jeremie and Les Cayes, the rural population will flock there for supplies and never leave, leading to unchecked overcrowding.

"We must think about developing a plan, to coordinate support and deliver it where it's most needed and not where it's easiest to access," Wahba said.</s>PORT-AU-PRINCE/LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) – Cholera has killed at least 13 people in southwest Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, government officials told Reuters yesterday, as health workers sought to reach the epicenter of one outbreak.

Six people died of Cholera in a hospital in the southern town of Randel, which is inland near a river, and another seven died in the western coastal town of Anse-d´Ainault, the officials said, likely as flood waters mixed with sewage.

“Randel is isolated, you must cross water, you must go high in the mountains, cars cannot go, motorcycles cannot go,” said Eli Pierre Celestin, a member of team that fights Cholera for the health ministry. “People have started dying.”

“There are nurses but no doctors,” he said, concerned that Cholera would spread due to lack of hygiene and as ground water moved because of rain and floods.

He said there were also outbreaks in Port-a-Piment and Les Anglais.

Cholera causes severe diarrhoea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Hurricane Matthew left almost 900 people dead in Haiti and caused major flooding and loss of livestock.

It slammed into South Carolina yesterday, after skirting the Atlantic coast of Florida and Georgia, causing widespread power outages and flooding.

Dr Donald Francois, head of the Haitian health ministry´s cholera programme, said 62 others were sick with Cholera as a result of the storm.

“We are concerned about these new outbreaks of Cholera we are seeing in new districts,” he told Reuters. “The situation is particularly difficult in Randel and (nearby) Port-a-Piment.”

“I am on my way to the south region to assess the situation and ensure all the necessary measures are in place,” he said, adding that he had heard unconfirmed reports that as many as 50 people may have died from Cholera in southern Haiti.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders scrambled teams by helicopter to southern Haiti to respond to Cholera cases.

Clifford Gauther, the health ministry´s director for Haiti´s Sud Department, said Cholera treatment centres, many made of metal sheeting, were destroyed by the hurricane. The ministry was rebuilding them.

“Almost every October we have a spike (in Cholera cases), but this time it’s worse, 70 to 80 cases,” he said.

Before the hurricane struck, the Central Emergency Response Fund released a loan of $8 million to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, to ramp up the response to a worsening Cholera epidemic in Haiti.

“In 2016 almost 27,000 Cholera cases have been reported in Haiti, and over 240 people have died. Hurricane Matthew is feared to significantly worsen the situation and increase the risk of a larger outbreak,” CERF said in a statement on Friday.

It was hot and sunny yesterday in Les Cayes in southern Haiti. Flood waters receded and residents cleared some debris from the streets. One man was putting up a tarpaulin over his exposed roof.

As the shock of the storm wore off, the enormity of the damage was beginning to sink in.

“I have land but I don’t have a house anymore. It’s starting to traumatize me, my head hurts. I think about it too much,” said Jean Vinel Joseph, 36, a medical orderly.</s>The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday, whipping it with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rains.

A Reuters tally of numbers from local officials showed that 1,000 people were killed by the storm in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

The official death toll from the central civil protection agency is 336, a slower count because officials must visit each village to confirm the numbers.

Authorities had to start burying the dead in mass graves in Jeremie as the bodies were starting to decompose, Kedner Frenel, the most senior central government official in the Grand'Anse region on Haiti's western peninsula.

Frenel said 522 people died in Grand'Anse alone. A tally of death reported by mayors from 15 of 18 municipalities in Sud Department on the south side of the peninsula showed 386 people there. In the rest of the country, 92 people died, the same tally showed.

Frenel said there was great concern about the cholera spreading, and that authorities were focused on getting water, food and medication to the thousands of people living in shelters.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country over the weekend to repair treatment centers and reach the epicenter of one outbreak.</s>Residents carry a coffin containing the remains of a pregnant woman, a victim of Hurricane Matthew, in Jeremie, Haiti. Friday, Oct. 7, 2016. People across southwest Haiti were digging through the wreckage of their homes Friday, salvaging what they could of their meager possessions after Matthew killed hundreds of people in the impoverished country. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)
Matthew's death toll in Haiti rises to at least one thousand, with victims being buried in mass graves. An unknown number of people remain missing and authorities report that cholera is spreading in the hardest hit-areas in the country's southwest.