The same day, the Haitian Red Cross sent a convoy of four trucks carrying enough relief items for 2,000 families and an ambulance filled with medical supplies to Gonaives from Port-au-Prince. The ICRC team returned to the area the next day to further assess the situation and provide medical kits to treat 150 injured people in Gonaives.

Given the scale of the disaster, the Haitian Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the ICRC have all mobilized their staff and are coordinating their efforts. One of their first tasks will be to make Gonaives hospital, which was not spared by the floods, operational again. At the same time, Haitian Red Cross volunteers are organizing the trucking of water from St Marc to Gonaives, where tens of thousands of people are in dire need of help. Together with the ICRC, they are also collecting the dead for identification and temporary burial.

At this stage, the main priorities are to treat the injured (many of whom were hit by corrugated iron falling from collapsed houses), provide those in need with food and water, find shelter for the homeless, identify and bury the dead and dispose of animal carcasses.

While the situation in Gonaives is particularly serious, other parts of northern Haiti have also been affected, including the coastal town of Port-de-Paix, the island of La Tortue and the mountainous areas around Gonaives. During an assessment, an ICRC and Haitian Red Cross team came across a village situated between Cap Haitien and Gonaives where 28 people had died and many houses had been destroyed. The road between the two cities has been cut off by overflowing rivers and the National Society is currently trying to organize relief for the village.

The ICRC, which has staff permanently based in Cap Haitien, was able to rapidly deploy a team in the country. The International Federation is currently sending additional staff and material so that it can soon assume the overall direction of the Red Cross response.