Storm-hit Haiti gets first major food aid

The first major handout of food aid took place along Haiti's storm-wrecked southwest coast on Wednesday - but supplies were still far short of what was needed by the thousands of starving people.

Two trucks loaded with rice from the UN's World Food Programme stocks and two others from private charities went by convoy to two hard-hit towns on Haiti's Tiburon Peninsula: Port Salut and Roche a Bateau.

"It is very important to reach the most vulnerable communities and provide them with life-saving food assistance," a WFP spokesperson, Alexis Masciarelli, told AFP by telephone.

"These people have lost their homes and livelihood and sometimes have nothing else to eat than the coconuts and papayas from the fallen trees."

In Port Salut, some in a crowd of people waiting in the frying sun for the food to be handed out confirmed that meagre diet since Hurricane Matthew ravaged their crops, livestock and fruit trees on October 4.