Port-au-Prince is about the size of Chicago. But it doesn’t have a sewer system. It’s one of the largest cities in the world without one.
That’s a big problem, but never more so than during a time of cholera.
Since cholera was introduced into Haiti 18 months ago — most likely by United Nations peacekeeping troops from Nepal, where the disease is endemic — more than a half-million people have gotten sick and at least 7,050 have died.
Public health authorities say cholera will stay in the environment for a long time, because Haiti has the worst sanitation in this hemisphere.
It’s hard for Americans to imagine what this means.
The cumulative sewage of 3 million people flows through open ditches. It mixes with ubiquitous piles of garbage. Each night, an all-but-invisible army of workers called bayakou descend into man-sized holes with buckets to remove human waste from septic pits and latrines, then dump it into the canals that cut through the city.
Darwin is ever amazed by the audacious risk of genomes that some live “On the Scene” reporters will go to in order to get “the Story”. Here’s one Darwin Award candidate practicing his ‘bus brush-back’ skills. Close call, eh? Just wait until he graduates to the ‘human lightning chaser’ reporting category–and actually catches some lightnings.
He might have a chance for that job depending on his interviewing skills, even though his credentials appear to be a few hairs short of a pompadour. But any other ‘real’ job, not so much.
First there was the ‘Gore Effect‘, that curious phenomenon where any place Al Gore went to hold a conference on Global Warmining or there was to be some sort of scientific Arctic or Antarctic expedition proving the theory of Global Warming (AGW-Climate Change-Global Warming (AKA: Weather)), it turned out to be ‘too cold’ or there was ‘too much ice’ and the event had to be cancelled.
Unforgiving cold has punished the eastern United States for the past 10 days. But the most severe winter weather yet will assault the area Wednesday night into the weekend.
First, a monster ocean storm is taking shape, which pasted parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with rare ice and snow early Wednesday. By Thursday, the exploding storm will, in many ways, resemble a winter hurricane, battering easternmost New England with potentially damaging winds in addition to blinding snow. Blizzard warnings have been issued for the Virginia Tidewater region up the coast to eastern Maine, including Ocean City, Atlantic City, eastern Long Island, Boston and Portland.
Hey how’s that AGW-Climate Change-Global Warming (AKA: Weather) going for you, New Year’s Eve party-goers? Not so well. So sue Al Gore for ruining your New Year’s Eve festivities. After all, Al promised you that all the ice at the North Pole would be melted by today. Oh, and watch out for that pesky frostbite. You really do still want your ears, and your nose, and your fingers and toes, and other dangly pieces-parts, right?
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That’s a big problem, but never more so than during a time of cholera.
proving the theory of Global Warming (AGW-Climate Change-Global Warming (AKA: Weather)), it turned out to be ‘too cold’ or there was ‘too much ice’ and the event had to be cancelled.
