Haiti PM: rebuilding could take 10 years

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Four weeks after an  earthquake shattered its capital, Haiti remains in a precarious  situation with no clear idea of how to house 1 million people  living in the streets, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said  yesterday.

Bellerive said it could take his impoverished Caribbean  nation three or four years to return to its pre-quake state and  up to 10 years to rebuild 250,000 houses destroyed by the  magnitude 7 earthquake on Jan. 12.

Planning for shelters and new homes is not far along and  the number of spontaneous tent encampments around the city —  where most Haitians are living under plastic tarps or cloth  bedsheets — has grown to nearly 500, Bellerive said.

“We are still in a very difficult situation,” Bellerive  told Reuters. “We still don’t have a clear vision of certain  problems — how we are going to relocate all those people.”

Bellerive, an economist who became prime minister only two  months before the quake, said conditions are improving in some  areas, with better food distribution and better health  services.

Foreign donors have poured millions of dollars worth of  food, shelter and other aid into Haiti, where before the quake  most people lived on less than $2 a day.

Bellerive said shelter remained the biggest problem for the  government to address. Residents whose homes were damaged, or  who are afraid to sleep indoors, have set up camp on the edges  of the capital’s airport, the main city square downtown, a golf  course, open fields, courtyards of businesses and sidewalks.

During the next four to six months, he said, the government  will have to move people to shelters or establish them in camps  with better facilities. Haiti’s rainy season could start in  weeks, and the Caribbean hurricane season begins on June 1.

“In some places they will stay where they are, (we will)  just accommodate them. In other places, we just have to move  them. And if we move them we have to give them all the services  because they won’t be in the condition to take care of  themselves,” Bellerive said.

Sanitation in the camps, most of which have no toilets or  running water, is a big concern with the rainy season coming,  Bellerive said. The government hopes to have latrines in place  before the rain starts and is sending health workers out to  counsel residents about the hazards of sleeping, cooking and  bathing in the same small spaces.

Although health officials have seen rising cases of tetanus  and other ailments, Bellerive said there had been no major  outbreaks of disease.

“We believe we are controlling any surge of any epidemics  in Haiti,” he said. “We don’t have any epidemics in Haiti up  until now.”

The government has said 250,000 homes were destroyed by the  earthquake, most of them in the capital, and thousands more may  be declared uninhabitable in the weeks to come. Asked how long  it would take to rebuild those homes, Bellerive said: “A long  time … I’ve said 10 years. I say it will be at least three to  four years to go back to the 11th of January.”