European Union offers aid to Haiti

The European Commission has set aside three million euros (US$3.5 million) in urgent funding for aid groups to help victims of a deadly 7.2-magnitude quake that struck Haiti at the weekend.

"The EU is quickly mobilising support to this already extremely fragile country, where hurricanes and heavy rainfalls aggravate the dire situation even more," the EU commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, said in a statement.

The EU executive stressed the money would "address the most immediate needs" such as medical assistance for overwhelmed hospitals, as well as water, shelter and sanitation for the most vulnerable.

Haiti's crisis was being compounded by the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic and chronic insecurity; the statement noted.

The massive earthquake hit west of the capital Port-au-Prince on Saturday, killing more than 1,400 people and flattening thousands of buildings.

The impoverished Caribbean country is now at risk of flash flooding and mudslides as a storm, Tropical Depression Grace, bore down on it on Tuesday.

Haiti has not yet fully recovered from a huge 2010 quake that devastated Port-au-Prince, and the country is still reeling from its president's assassination last month.

More than 1.5 million Haitians were made homeless in that disaster, which also destroyed 60 percent of Haiti's healthcare system, leaving authorities and the international humanitarian community with a colossal challenge.

The latest earthquake comes just over a month after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home by a team of gunmen, shaking a country already battling poverty, spiraling gang violence and Covid-19.-Nampa/AFP