In brief: Erika weakens after clobbering Dominica
SANTO DOMINGO, Domican Republic – Tropical Storm Erika began to lose steam Friday over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but it caused a trail of destruction that killed at least 20 people and left another 31 missing on the small eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, authorities said.
Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late Friday that the island has been set back 20 years in the damage inflicted by the storm.
“The extent of the devastation is monumental. It is far worse than expected,” he said, adding that hundreds of homes, bridges and roads have been destroyed. “We have, in essence, to rebuild Dominica.”
Tropical Storm Erika dumped 15 inches of rain on the mountainous island before it cut Friday into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it toppled trees and power lines.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the system was expected to move north across the island of Hispaniola, where the high mountains would weaken it to a tropical depression today and possibly cause it to dissipate entirely.
GDP in Brazil down 1.9 percent
RIO DE JANEIRO – The bottom seems to have fallen out of Brazil’s economy, with the government reporting Friday that the gross domestic product plunged 1.9 percent in the second quarter alone, once again throwing the nation into a technical recession.
It’s more bad news for President Dilma Rousseff, who is fighting for her political life. Two-thirds of Brazilians polled say they want to see her impeached because of a massive corruption scandal and what is widely perceived as mishandling of the economy.
The drop was slightly larger than consensus forecasts of private economists published by the Central Bank, and prompted many to take an even gloomier view of prospects for the globe’s seventh-largest economy.
Like most Latin American nations, Brazil has been hurt by the plunge in commodity prices and the slowdown in China, which has been a big buyer of Brazil’s soy, iron ore and other commodities.