LONDON (AlertNet) - Seasonal rains and hurricanes spell trouble for Haiti at the best of times, but with hundreds of thousands of people living in flimsy shelters after last month's earthquake, this year the dangers are much greater.
The rainy season usually begins in earnest in early April and the hurricane season in early June, according to the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Both can be deadly.
"If a hurricane hits Haiti head on, the loss of life will be severe and every temporary housing camp will be wiped out," blogged Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of non-profit design and building group Architecture for Humanity.
Margareta Wahlstrom, the U.N. Secretary-General's special representative for disaster risk reduction, offered a similar warning for the Haitian capital. The city bore the brunt of the Jan. 12 earthquake, which has killed up to 300,000 people.
"Port-au-Prince is built on vulnerable small slopes and mountains. With the rains, these slopes start softening up and cause mudslides like we have seen in the past, causing schools to collapse and more deaths," she told AlertNet from Geneva.
A series of storms in Haiti in 2008 showed the extent of damage they can cause - even to sturdy buildings. More than 800 people were killed and nearly 1 million left homeless or in dire need of help.
Haiti is extremely vulnerable to floods and mudslides because most of its hillsides have been stripped bare. Cutting down trees to make charcoal to sell for fuel is a last resort for many rural Haitians who have no other income between harvests.
Within the aid community in Haiti, there are no expectations of being able to build sufficient durable housing before the storms start, and no mention so far of evacuation plans in case of floods or mudslides.
"We have a huge challenge in terms of just providing emergency shelter - something we feel that if we put all our weight behind, as we are doing right now, we will be able (to do), to get plastic protection materials out to everyone," said Kristen Knutson, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office coordinating the international relief effort, in a telephone interview from Haiti. She added that more robust housing would be needed in the longer-term.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which is coordinating shelter-related aid work in Haiti, is only just completing its first model "transitional" house, but hopes construction of more houses will begin before the rainy season.
"MINIMAL PROTECTION"
In the meantime, aid agencies are focusing on providing earthquake survivors with waterproof shelter materials and improving sanitation and health care - all essential in wet conditions that help infections spread.
"Neither tents nor tarpaulins, however, will provide more than minimal protection from the Haitian rainy season which peaks in May, when Port-au-Prince gets an average 230 mm of rain and sometimes as much as 50 mm in two hours. The hurricane season, which begins later in the year, is of special concern," IFRC said in a statement.
The WMO has been discussing with the Haitian authorities and aid groups on the ground whether it would be possible to anticipate floods and move displaced people - many of whom are camping out on low-lying plains and near the sea - to safer ground, according to Maryam Golnaraghi, who heads the disaster risk reduction programme at the U.N. weather body. She added she did not yet know the outcome.
To organise a successful evacuation, reliable and consistent forecasts of extreme weather must reach the government and relief groups quickly. That is difficult in Haiti as the earthquake destroyed its weather stations, which the WMO estimates will cost $1 million to rebuild.
Since the quake, the United States, Canada, Britain and the Dominican Republic have provided weather forecasts for Haiti which have supported aid operations. But to prevent any confusion, the WMO is working with Haiti's authorities to ensure that all forecasts are channelled through the impoverished country's official meteorological service.
Another challenge is disseminating the information, now that only a fifth of Haiti's media is up and running, Golnaraghi said.
As progress is made towards these aims, Haiti will become better prepared for the upcoming storm season. But time is short and the number of people at risk enormous.
"We recognise that this is minimal perfection," said Knutson from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
(Additional reporting by Anastasia Moloney in Bogota) (Editing by Megan Rowling)
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