GONAIVES, Haiti (AFP) - Health care workers and rescuers from around the world struggled to meet the needs of survivors of the devastating floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne, feared to have killed over 2,000 people in this northern Haitian city.
Thousands remain homeless after torrential rains and floodwaters ripped through Haiti on September 18.
Civil protection authorities put the official death toll at at least 1,514, with 952 remaining missing. The bulk of the victims are from this coastal city with a population of about 250,000, located 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Port-au-Prince.
Three medical centers staffed by personnel from the United Nations, the Red Cross, humanitarian non-governmental groups and Cuban doctors have been working closely to help thousands of needy Haitians.
Benoit Porte, a French Red Cross official in Gonaives, said it was a "text book case" of the different groups dividing responsibilities and tasks on the ground.
Providence Hospital, the city's only public hospital, was devastated by the effects of Jeanne, which buried the operations room, maternity ward, blood transfusion center and even recently upgraded power generation equipment under mud.
According to Wedner Pierre, a Providence doctor, the operating room will be out of service for at least a month and a half. Pierre said that Cuban doctors will get it working again.
In the impoverished Raboteau district, a stronghold of supporters of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide -- ousted from power in February -- a hospital had been built but never equipped.
At the site a team of 30 members of the French group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), including five doctors, four nurses and three psychologists, recently opened an aid center, visited daily by hundreds of people, mostly women and children.
On Tuesday, 10 Cuban doctors joined the MSF team. Roberto Leon, a Cuban doctor in charge of the group, said that 64 Cuban doctors in total are working in Gonaives.
The most common ailments of disaster victims are malnutrition, respiratory tract infections among children, and adults with wounds infected by stagnant water, said Swiss doctor Julia Schurch, with MSF.
Schurch said there is a risk of malaria and contagious diseases rising in the next two weeks.
Jean-Marie Deya, a doctor with the French Red Cross, said there was a "high risk of an epidemic of gastro-intestinal problems and of measles," adding that it is a region of endemic malaria.
All the doctors interviewed by AFP underlined the urgence of providing enough clean drinking water to prevent the outbreak of epidemics resulting from stagnant water.
The French Red Cross announced Tuesday the construction of a water treatment plant just outside the city limits, which starting Sunday should provide some 600,000 liters of drinking water per day, enough to provide for some 40,000 residents.
International troops in a UN peacekeeping force have been mobilized to secure key food distribution points and stop them being over-run by starving Haitians.
One of the world's poorest countries, Haiti has the worst deforestation in the western hemisphere, depriving many areas of natural protection from flooding. It had already been ravaged by killer floods in May and deadly civil strife earlier this year.