PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - One of the heaviest rainfalls since Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake swamped homeless camps Friday, sweeping screaming residents into eddies of water, overflowing latrines and panicking thousands. The overnight downpour sent water coursing down the slopes of a former golf course that now serves as a temporary home for about 45,000 people. There were no reports of deaths in the camp, a town-size maze of blue, orange and silver tarps located behind the country club used by the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne as a forward-operating base. But the deluge terrified families who just two months ago survived the collapse of their homes in the magnitude-7 earthquake and are now struggling to make do in tent-and-tarp camps that officials have repeatedly said must be relocated. "I was on one side (of the tarp), the children were on the other side and I was trying to push the water out," Jackquine Exama, a 34-year-old mother of seven, said through tears. "I'm not used to this," she said. Aid workers said people were swept screaming into eddies of water and flows ripped down tents an Israeli aid group is using to teach school. "They were crying. There was just fear down there. It was chaos," said Jim Wilson of the aid group Praecipio, who came running from his own shelter up the hill when he heard the screams. After the sun rose Friday, people used sticks and their bare hands to dig drainage ditches around their tarps and shanties.
