Floods kill hundreds as storm ravages Haiti

Bloated bodies and weeping relatives filled mortuaries today as Tropical Storm Jeanne killed more than 570 Haitians with the toll expected to rise.

The devastation marked yet another tragedy for Haiti in a year marked by revolts, military interventions and deadly floods.

The bodies of two children were found on a pavement yesterday in Gonaives, where one third of the dead brought to the hospital were children. More than 500 people had died in the sprawling northern city, according to Touissant Kongo-Doudou, a spokesman for the United Nations mission.

Another 17 died in the nearby town of Terre Neuve, agriculture official Madiro Morilus said, and another 56 were recovered in the northern city of Port-de-Paix, according to Kongo-Doudou.

“The water is high. As it goes down, we expect to find more bodies,” Kongo-Doudou said.

Tropical Storm Jeanne entered the Caribbean last week, killing seven people in the US territory of Puerto Rico before heading to the Dominican Republic where it killed at least 18.

The toll has been largest in Haiti where deforestation has made even light rain deadly. More than 90% of Haiti’s trees have been chopped down, mostly to make charcoal. Without roots and foliage, there is nothing to hold water back from low-lying towns.

Haiti marked its bicentennial amid political turmoil in January. A month later, a three-week rebellion ended in the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the arrival of a US-led multinational force. In May, disaster struck again with floods that killed more than 3,000 people on the Haitian-Dominincan border in the southern part of the island.

Although Jeanne regained hurricane strength Monday, the storm posed no threat to land.

“I lost my kids and there’s nothing I can do,” said Jesner Estimable, 35, who brought the body of his two-year-old daughter to UN peacekeepers yesterday. Soldiers put the corpse in a body bag while her mother wailed. Another one of the couple’s children was still missing.

“All I have is complete despair and the clothes I’m wearing,” he said, pointing to a floral dress and ripped trousers borrowed from a neighbour.

In Gonaives, a city of about a quarter of a million people, residents waded through ankle-deep mud outside the mayor’s office, where workers were shovelling out mud and doctors treated the wounded. Aid workers were helping a woman give birth.

Floodwaters destroyed homes and crops from corn to onions in the Artibonite region that is Haiti’s breadbasket.

Katya Silme, 18, said her family spent the night in a tree because their house was flooded.

“Now we have nothing. We have not eaten anything since the floods” said Silme.

Argentine troops, part of the UN force, helped treat 140 injured, most for cuts to feet and legs. Officials said another 500 others were treated Monday at city hall, where officials said doctors and nurses are urgently needed.

Three trucks carrying Red Cross relief supplies from tents to blankets rolled in yesterday, but two were mobbed by people who grabbed blankets and towels. UN troops stood by watching. Only one truck arrived intact with tents.

Elsewhere people tripped over each other to get bags of water thrown from a Red Cross truck.

“Everyone is desperate,” said Pelissier Heber of the Artibonite Chamber of Commerce.

Interim prime minister Gerard Latortue toured flooded areas on Sunday and declared Gonaives a disaster area, calling for aid. The US embassy announced about €54,168 in immediate relief.

In the Dominican Republic, at least 11 drowned yesterday after rivers raged from Jeanne’s rains, said Jose Luis German, spokesman for the National Emergency Committee.

At 10pm yesterday, Jeanne was about 370 miles east-north east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, with winds near 85mph, moving north east at about 7mph.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Lisa remained far out in the Atlantic and were not immediate threats to land. Karl’s sustained winds were 120mph, making it a Category 3 hurricane. Lisa had winds of 65mph.