Floods in refugee camps

A series of brief rain storms have flooded Haiti's earthquake camps  in the past few days, with worrying portents of what promises to be a more-active-than-usual hurricane season.

A 30-minute downpour left 15cm of water inside makeshift tents on the sloping golf course of the Petionville Club, now a tented city of about 45,000 people.

People ran for cover in viscous mud wearing plastic shower caps and towels over their heads. Leaks sprung in emergency tarpaulins given by aid groups after the January 12th earthquake destroyed their homes.

"Of course I am worried about the rain. I have my mother here with high blood pressure and my family lives here," said a 37-year-old woman who gave her name as Ammeni.

Earlier in the week Haitian radio broadcast a forecast from Colorado State University researchers that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be more active than usual because of warm sea temperatures. They said that moderating El Nino conditions in the Pacific were likely to dissipate by summer, creating a likelihood of 15 named storms between June 1 and Nov. 30 — four of those major hurricanes.

That could cause havoc if any strike near the quake-ravaged capital, where NGOs and government officials are racing to improve shelter for over a million people made homeless by the earthquake. Some will be relocated to camps outside the city; others are being encouraged to return to their own neighbourhoods; others still will move out into the countryside; and others will stay put. It is not yet clear how much of the $9.9 billion pledged to Haiti by donors will go toward improving shelter, or how soon the money will materialise. Individuals and governments have been incredibly generous so far, but the scale of the disaster is immense. And of course money being made available is only the start of the gigantic task of clearing land, laying proper drainage & foundations and rebuilding.

Rains are expected to grow more intense as hurricane season approaches. In 2008, nearly 800 people were killed as Haiti was wracked by four named storms in the space of a month.