Disaster: Haiti Needs Toilets as Much as Food and Water
food distribution photo: LA Times
That’s right the Associated Press has reported that amongst the major concerns, the lack of latrines has entered the top three. The need for water and food for over one million homeless has been there since the earthquake first hit. Now over two weeks into this ordeal a new threat has developed and that is the lack of toilets. At present there are on average one latrine per 2000 people.
The homeless has crowded into the capital city of Port-Au-Prince leaving no empty spaces and no place to dig for latrines. Unicef is on site and trying to coordinate water and sanitation. As of Saturday they are digging latrines for approxiamately 20,000 people. They are expecting about 1,100 squatting platforms for the camps in which they will be partitioned off with sheets of plastic for some privacy.
