Credit+bureaus+under+fire,+Business+Day



=Tragedy of a collapsing civilisation=

Snipers and looters hamper rescue of starving thousands, stranded in filth and harrowing decay

The Star, Johannesburg, Saturday, September 3, 2005

 * By Mira Oberman and Patrick Moser**

Fresh and harrowing tales of carnage, violence and collapsing civilisation emerged from the tragedy of New Orleans, as authorities battled to cope with the escalating crisis.

Representatives of cut-off districts left to fend for themselves arrived yesterday at an emergency operations centre in nearby Baton Rouge, on mercy missions or to plead for armed help to cope with rampant looting.

They brought scarcely believable stories of almost frontier violence, vigilante justice and desperate suffering.

There were also tales of looters in speedboats firing on rescuers, forcing them to abort efforts to pull people from waterlogged homes, five days after Hurricane Katrina struck.

Amos Cormier made the hazardous journey from Plaquimes Parish, south of New Orleans, to ask for a satellite phone, plus 50 military policemen, 50 assault weapons and 50 shotguns to ward off looters.

He also wanted 200 body bags and said people were waiting on a levee to be rescued.

"Over half the parish is immersed in water," he said, referring to the district which once had a population of 27 000.

Yesterday, an official from another parish, St Bernard's, said 100 people had died on a slipway from exhaustion, dehydration and heart attacks as they waited for rescue. Authorities had not even known they were in trouble because communications were wiped out by the storm and subsequent flash tides.

Bo Boeheringer of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said gangs of looters, some in boats, were firing on rescuers as they tried to pull people off roofs.

Rescue teams were forced to pull back on numerous occasions, he said, adding that the department's teams alone managed to save 8 000 people from swamped homes.

A US senator said yesterday the death toll could top 10 000.

Meanwhile, National Guardsmen, buoyed by Iraq-tested reinforcements, yesterday started to wrest control of New Orleans from armed thugs and looters.

Thousands of fresh troops poured into the southern jazz capital, scrambling to reverse a tide of anarchy and to bolster relief efforts that President George Bush acknowledged were unacceptably slow.

Officials also brought in about 300 battle-hardened members of the Arkansas National Guard, just back from Iraq and authorised to open fire on hoodlums profiting from the destruction.

"They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded," Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."

Yesterday troops chased gun-toting gangs from the convention centre to deliver the first large-scale relief supplies to up to 20 000 survivors huddling in fear and filth.

They finally emptied out the nearby Superdome sports stadium that also had descended into a squalid, violent hell with an equal number of desperate residents awaiting rescue.

But officials spoke of pockets of mayhem, including violence at a major hospital that forced suspension of evacuation operations with many of the remaining 100 patients facing death if they were not transferred.

A senior Army officer said that by late last night the number of troops deployed in New Orleans would be nearly doubled to 7000, patrolling alongside hundreds of civilian police also moving in.

Guardsmen were deployed at strategic intersections, and armed personnel carriers patrolled the streets while helicopters whirred above.

"Oh, Lord have mercy, they have finally come," exulted one resident.

Overnight gunfire and pre-dawn explosions heightened the panic in New Orleans where tens of thousands remained trapped amid fetid floodwaters, rotting corpses, armed gangs and troops with shoot-to-kill orders.

There was no word on casualties or the cause of the blasts, including one that erupted at a chemical storage depot near the French Quarter. Flames at a fast-food restaurant threatened to burn down a neighbouring hotel.

Survivors of Katrina's fury recounted horrific tales of bodies piling up, gunbattles, fistfights, rapes, carjackings and widespread looting since the storm struck on Monday.

Lieutenant-General Carl Strock, commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers, said water levels had stabilised but it would take weeks or longer to drain the city 80% submerged.

Local officials stepped up their criticism of Washington's failure to speed troops and relief to the greater New Orleans area, where up to 300 000 people were still believed stranded.

Terry Ebbert, the chief of New Orleans' emergency operations, branded the delays a "national disgrace" and moaned: "We can send massive amounts of aid to (Asian) tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

The spectacle of the superpower struggling with a natural catastrophe and a growing refugee problem more common to the developing world shocked US allies and foes abroad.

The UN Children's Fund deplored the fact that the poorest residents, those unable to flee the hurricane, bore the brunt of the disaster. It said 300 000 to 400 000 children were left homeless.

Consulting firm Risk Management Solutions estimated economic losses would likely top $100-billion and called the situation in New Orleans "the most damaging flood in US history".


 * - Sapa-AFP**


 * From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=131&fArticleId=2862521**