12:19pm Friday 12th March 2010
By Clare Kennedy
HAMPSHIRE soldiers have helped bring vital food supplies to a remote fishing village in Haiti as the country struggles to recover from its devastating earthquake.
Members of the 17 Port and Maritime Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, based at Marchwood, have come to the rescue of people living in Anse a Veau, 60 miles from the capital of Port au Prince.
For the last six weeks the village has been surviving on occasional air drops organised across the Caribbean country by the World Food Programme.
But now, thanks to the Hampshire soldiers’ cargo on board the Largs Bay floating raft, including 275,000 ready meals, 31.5 tonnes of rice, 6.5 tonnes of beans, 114 boxes of vegetable oil and 13 bags of salt, there will be enough supplies to feed the surrounding community of 5,500 for a month.
Commanding officer, Captain Ian Johnson said: “It is so rewarding for all the team to be able to get involved and help with the unloading of the cargo and be able to deliver to those that are so cut off from the rest of Haiti.
“Conventional ships would be unable to do this task, the bay is too shallow for even small ships to get in and the coastal approaches are too deep to anchor.”
January’s earthquake, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, killed around 200,000 people and left many more homeless.
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