Skip to content
Return to British Red Cross blog home

Red Cross Blogs

Blogs highlighting the work of staff and volunteers within the British Red Cross, part of the largest humanitarian organisation movement in the world.


Haiti earthquake: talk about life-saving toilets

By Sarah Oughton
February 5, 2010 at 10:46 am

Line-of-womenOkay so toilets may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to life-saving equipment, but think again. Without decent sanitation facilities, diseases like cholera can spread like wild fire and as was seen in the Zimbabwe crisis last year – thousands of people can die as a result.

In an article on Reuters AlertNet, the UN reports that 7,000 latrines are urgently needed in Haiti to help prevent the spread of disease.

My colleague, Sharon Reader, is currently in Port-au-Prince with our sanitation emergency response unit. Listen in as I speak to her and find out how it’s all going.

Image © Joe Lowry/IFRC


Comment (0) »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Red Cross values comments both complimentary and critical. However, we will not tolerate the following: aggressive or personal criticism of the blogger, breach of copyright, obscene, defamatory, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or likewise objectionable comments.