颶風致海地數百人遇難

Smashed buildings, shatteredinfrastructure, ruined crops, dead livestock and the threat of cholera: Haitiis facing a daunting humanitarian crisis as the death toll from HurricaneMatthew rises beyond 800.

坍塌的建築物、毀壞的基礎設施、受損的農作物、死去的牲畜和霍亂的威脅：海地正面臨一場可怕的人道主義危機，颶風“馬修”(Hurricane Matthew)造成的死亡人數已經升至800人以上。

Aerial images showed the destructionwreaked by the worst hurricane to hit Haiti in half a century —and thestrongest Caribbean storm in a decade .

航拍照片顯示了這場颶風造成的破壞，這是海地半個世紀以來遭遇的最強颶風，也是加勒比海地區10年來最強的風暴。

“What I saw today was heartbreaking,” saidMourad Wahba, the UN’s resident humanitarian co-ordinator, after a flight oversome of the affected areas on Thursday. “I just hope we have the means to helpthe people — they will need everything into the next six months.”

“我今天看到的情況令人心碎，”聯合國常駐人道主義協調員穆拉德•沃赫拜(Mourad Wahba)週四從飛機上視察了一些遭受颶風打擊的地區後說，“我只希望我們有手段幫助這些人——他們在今後6個月裏將需要一切。”

Images of the southwestern town of Jérémie showedbuildings with their roofs ripped off. Residents reported feeling destitute andhungry.

海地西南部城鎮熱雷米(Jérémie)的照片顯示，建築物的屋頂被掀翻。居民稱感到絕望和飢餓。

“Devastation is everywhere,”AP quoted PilusEnor, mayor of the town of Camp Perrin, as saying. “Every househas lost its roof. All the plantations have been destroyed. This is the firsttime we see something like this.”

“到處都是毀滅，”美聯社(AP)援引Camp Perrin鎮鎮長皮盧什•埃諾爾(Pilus Enor)的話說，“每一棟房屋的屋頂都被掀掉。種植的東西都被摧毀。這是我們第一次看到這樣的事情。”

Downed bridges, power outages and damagedcommunications infrastructure made it hard to piece together a full Reuters put the fast-rising death toll at 572 as official reports from hard-to-accesscommunities trickled in.

橋樑垮塌、電力中斷和通信基礎設施損壞，令人難以掌握全局。但隨着難以到達的社區逐漸發來官方報告，遇難人數已快速升至842人。

Ironically, parts of the south-west of thecountry that were among the worst hit had just started recovering from aserious drought. “There were already food security issues,” said Jake Johnstonat the Center for Economic Policy Research. “This hurricane is magnifyingproblems that existed before.”

諷刺的是，此次受打擊最嚴重的海地西南部的一些地區此前纔剛剛開始從一場嚴重的乾旱中恢復。“那裏此前已經出現糧食安全問題，”經濟政策研究中心(Center for Economic Policy Research)的傑克•約翰斯頓(JakeJohnston)表示，“這場颶風正在放大此前存在的問題。”

Charcoal production has become a big businessin Haiti’s economy and the cutting down of trees to feed it has left swathsof the country vulnerable to extreme weather events.

木炭生產已經成爲海地經濟中的一大產業，爲了滿足該行業的需求而砍伐林木，使海地的大片地區容易受到極端天氣事件的影響。

But Haiti’s biggest problemwas that it had not finished rebuilding from the 2010 earthquake that killedmore than 200,000 and left some 55,000 still living in tents.

但海地最大的問題是，它還未曾結束2010年地震的重建工作，那場地震使逾20萬人喪生，有5.5萬人依然住在帳篷裏。