Weeks after hurricane, Haitians struggle for clean water
Source: Associated Press
Weeks after hurricane, Haitians struggle for clean water
Oct 28, 7:02 PM EDT
By DAVID McFADDEN
Associated Press
COTEAUX, Haiti (AP) -- It's been nearly a month since Hurricane Matthew tore through southern Haiti and people like Kettley Rosier and many of her neighbors still have to spend their meager savings to buy drinking water.
Reservoirs and pipe networks that people depend on for water across the country's southern peninsula were contaminated or damaged by a combination of ocean storm surge and sewage from the overflowing latrines that are commonly used in rural Haiti. Wells were submerged by rivers that topped their banks and carried cholera bacteria, which epidemiologists suspect has sickened thousands of people since the Category 4 hurricane.
That means there is just not enough clean water to drink, let alone bathe, in places like the town of Coteaux, adding to the misery in an area where many people lost their homes, as well as the crops and livestock they need to survive.
"We're tired of this," Rosier said on a recent morning, scratching at skin irritated after bathing with murky well water. For drinking water, she has to buy small bags from street vendors. "God only knows when the good water will come back."
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