Storm Death Toll Passes 700 in Haiti

GONAÏVES, Haiti, Sept. 21 - Survivors of devastating flooding in Haiti wandered the mud-clogged streets here on Tuesday in search of food, and officials said more than 700 people had been killed.

A tropical storm swept north of Haiti over the weekend, inundating cities and sending deadly mudslides through towns and villages.

Officials at the Office of Civil Protection in Port-au-Prince, the capital, said that 709 deaths had been confirmed in the flood-stricken areas and that 1,050 people were missing.

Most of the dead were in Gonaïves, a coastal city of 200,000 people where large areas were flooded.

Relief supplies were starting to reach the worst-hit areas, but the pace was slowed by waterlogged roads and worries about security in a country that remains unstable after an armed revolt ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February.

In Gonaïves, half the population need immediate assistance with food, water and shelter.

The World Food Program sent 12 trucks with 40 tons of food to Gonaïves, up a road still waterlogged in parts, and hoped to start handing it out by Wednesday after ensuring that distribution points would be secure, said the program's regional spokesman, Alejandro Chicheri.

Haiti is chronically vulnerable to flooding because widespread deforestation has stripped the topsoil from its hills and mountains. Flooding in May killed about 2,000 people in Haiti.

The tropical storm also killed 11 people in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and 2 in Puerto Rico.

The storm has strengthened to hurricane force and has meandered into the Atlantic, posing no immediate threat to land.


REUTERS