Families in peril as floods thwart rescue convoy

Haitian families scrambled on to rooftops and screamed for help today in a city flooded by Tropical Storm Hanna, as United Nations peacekeepers and rescue convoys tried in vain to reach them.

Hanna claimed 21 lives in Haiti, including 12 dead in the state containing the cut-off city of Gonaives, said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste of the country’s civil protection office in Port-au-Prince, the capital.