Caribbean flooding toll nearly 1,000
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – U.S. and Canadian troops rushed medical supplies, drinking water and chlorine tablets Thursday to flood-battered towns, where bodies were seen floating near the tops of palm trees. Haitian and Dominicans braced for a death toll that could reach 2,000.
About 10,000 people in villages surrounding the submerged Haitian town of Mapou, who are cut off by roads devoured in the mud and landslides, remained in urgent need of help, according to Michel Matera, a U.N. technical adviser.
“We are still having difficulty reaching them even by helicopter,” said Matera, who traveled to Mapou on Thursday. “We cannot land because of the flooding, nor can we get there on foot.”
Late Thursday night, confirmed deaths in the two countries rose to nearly 1,000 with Haitian officials saying the recovery of scores of more bodies brought the toll to 579. The Dominican Republic reported 417 deaths there earlier.
In what could add to the disaster, forecasters predicted more rain in the coming days for the southern border region between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as residents of Mapou tried to dry their clothes and other belongings on tree branches.
“We’re also fighting time because weather is turning bad again,” said U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led force. Hurricane season, which marks the beginning of the rainy season, starts Tuesday.
U.S. Marines, traveling by helicopter, hurried to deliver drinking water and chlorine tablets to hundreds in Mapou, which was covered by more than 10 feet of water.
“The situation is serious,” Lapan said of the town, some 30 miles southeast of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. troops delivered plastic tarpaulins for shelter in the Haitian border town of Fond Verrettes, and Red Cross workers in the Dominican Republic put up mosquito nets to help prevent malaria and dengue fever.
Mudslides have washed out roads in southern Haiti, preventing workers from getting an accurate death toll. U.N. teams planned to bring in boats Friday to help recover bodies. If workers cannot recover the corpses in time, they could contaminate water sources.
“You can still see bodies in the water coming up,” Matera said. “Palm trees are almost covered. There is a grave risk of an epidemic.”
U.S. Marines said they saw bodies near the tops of palm trees.
Rains over the weekend lashed the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, sweeping away entire neighborhoods early Monday. The floods struck before dawn while people were asleep. Some watched relatives and homes carried away in torrents of mud.
While the official death toll climbed to 996, the hundreds missing in both countries fed fears that the final toll could climb as high as 2,000 in the deadliest floods to hit the island in recent memory.
In Mapou alone, 300 bodies have been found and at least 700 more people were missing and feared dead, according to Margarette Martin, the government’s representative for Haiti’s southeast province.
The latest confirmed Haitian casualties occurred in the border town of Fond Verrettes where 165 people, including 45 children, were declared dead by the government Thursday night. About 100 bodies were recovered earlier in the southern town of Grand Gosier and several more elsewhere.
For many Haitians, it was one more disaster to pile atop the troubles weighing down on the poorest country in the Americas. The U.S.-led force, brought in to help after rebels ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, struggled to fill urgent needs while they prepare to hand over control to a U.N. force next Tuesday.
Real estate salesman Sentheliare Veretnne, 45, said his family’s small farm on the south coast was swept into the sea and others he knew were missing.
“I had no reaction because the country is already in crisis,” he said. “We have no work, there’s the political situation, everything. You can’t react emotionally.”
Haiti has become a hazardous place for flooding and mudslides because its impoverished people constantly fell trees to make charcoal – a practice that has left the country almost entirely deforested. Without roots to hold back the soil, rains can bring disaster.
One 18-year-old Haitian, Pepe Dematin, traveled from northern Cap-Haitien across the border to the Dominican town of Jimani searching for his brother’s family of five.
“I came to find them, but their house is gone,” Dematin said. “I think they must be dead.”
Haiti’s government, which has scant resources to deal the disaster, called for flags to be flown as half-staff today.
Dominican President Hipolito Mejia toured the border town of Jimani, promising new homes for families who had lost them.
American and Dutch Red Cross workers were helping Dominican authorities search for more bodies and treat dozens who were wounded, said Gustavo Lara, of the Dominican Red Cross.
Dominican authorities buried more than 250 bodies immediately, some where they were found and others in a mass grave. Authorities told families there was no time to identify the bodies because they were badly decomposed. Officials plan to spray disinfectant by plane over Jimani to prevent the remains from spreading disease.