Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis that requires a "massive response" from the international community, the United Nations chief said Monday, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid following last week's battering by Hurricane Matthew.
Matthew leveled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, with victims pleading for aid to arrive quickly.
The United Nations has launched a $120 million flash appeal to cover the needs in Haiti for the next three months.
"A massive response is required," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.
"Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map," he said.
"These numbers and needs are growing as more affected areas are reached."
After pummeling Haiti on October 4 as a monster Category 4 storm, packing winds of 145 miles (230 kilometers) per hour, Matthew slammed into the southeastern United States, where it killed 20 people.
Worst humanitarian crisisIn Haiti, more than 300 schools have been damaged, while crops and food reserves have been destroyed, Ban said.
UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien said the hurricane had triggered the worst humanitarian crisis in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.
The department of Grande Anse in Haiti's southwest, which took a direct hit, was the most devastated area, with 198 dead, 97 injured and 99,400 people staying in temporary shelters.
More than 175,500 are in shelters elsewhere in the country.
Deliveries of supplies were hamstrung by cut roads and communications.
"I understand of course the frustration," Jean-Luc Poncelet, the country representative for the UN's World Health Organization, said after arriving at the airport outside Jeremie, one of the worst-hit cities.
But, he said, the storm's impact in the south and west of the Tiburon Peninsula had been "really catastrophic."
"When you have no means of communication, no radio, no telephone, no roads and even a helicopter can't land -- this is what explains the massive delay," he told AFP.
American military helicopters were unloading boxes of supplies from the United States Agency for International Development to be stored by the UN in Jeremie before being taken to other parts of the south for distribution.
An official at the airport who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media said nearly 20 tons of supplies -- tarpaulins, rice, cooking oil and hygiene kits -- were being brought in.
That added to 47 tons already brought in by US military helicopters from the capital Port-au-Prince.
But getting aid to Haitians now reduced to drinking unclean water and living in roofless houses will be challenging.
On a main road crossing the mountainous center of the peninsula, residents of some villages blocked roads with trees, rocks and other storm debris in an effort to stop aid convoys from passing through without delivering supplies.
Cholera fearsHaiti began a three-day period of mourning on Sunday, as it grapples with a worsening cholera outbreak in the storm-hit areas.
Matthew hit when Haitians were already struggling with the intestinal disease spread by contaminated food and water, with more than 500 new cases each week.
UN peacekeepers have been blamed for introducing the disease to Haiti, where it has killed 10,000 people since October 2010.
While some towns and villages reported an apparent spike in infections since the storm, Poncelet said "the number of cases of cholera that we have confirmed are low."
He declined to give a number, but said there were "tens" of cases in one area of the peninsula.
Still, he said the World Health Organization had to "be careful" about cholera and other diseases that cause diarrhea, leading to victims becoming dangerously dehydrated.
Though evaluation teams were still working to get a precise picture of the health situation, medical supplies were being brought in for quicker distribution, he said.
"The population is very anxious," Poncelet said. "They haven't had any systematic support over the last days," he said.
Mourad Wahba, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, warned that the emergency response should focus on delivering aid to smaller rural communities, where many families survive by subsistence farming and have had all their crops washed away.
If aid is only delivered to cities such as Jeremie and Les Cayes, the rural population will flock there for supplies and never leave, leading to unchecked overcrowding.
"We must think about developing a plan, to coordinate support and deliver it where it's most needed and not where it's easiest to access," Wahba said.
