UN puts disaster teams on standby as Hurricane Dennis roars through Caribbean

With Hurricane Dennis bearing down on Cuba after cutting a swath through Jamaica and Haiti, the United Nations emergency coordination office announced today that it had put Disaster Assessment and Coordination Teams on standby for possible deployment to the Caribbean.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had also been in contact with UN Resident Coordinators in the three countries and preparatory measures had been taken to mitigate the storm's impact.

Some 300 people in Haiti have so far been evacuated to temporary shelters in the hurricane's wake.

Last month, OCHA, in conjunction with the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the UN Country Team, and local and national government authorities, conducted two simulation exercises to prepare for evacuations in case of natural disasters.