Posted on 05/26/2004 3:55:50 AM PDT by Libloather
Dominican, Haiti Floods Kill at Least 360
2 hours, 51 minutes ago
By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer
JIMANI, Dominican Republic - The caskets of dozens of children lined this town's streets after floods swept away whole villages and sent desperate families into the darkness and mud in a frantic search for loved ones. At least 360 were dead and hundreds missing.
Trucks dumped more than 100 bodies into a mass grave outside of Jimani, a town of about 10,000 on the Haitian border, on Tuesday. Sobbing families, meanwhile, waited for the tiny caskets of their children to be buried in cemeteries.
Heavy rains caused the Solie River to burst its banks, washing away three neighborhoods of wooden shacks built by Haitian migrants working in this Dominican town. Many residents were still asleep when the torrent of mud swept through the town before daybreak on Monday.
"We can't find her anywhere!" cried Norma Cuevas, 32, as she desperately searched for her 63-year-old mother. She was among dozens of people clawing through mud with their bare hands Tuesday in a search for relatives.
An Associated Press reporter counted at least 180 bodies on the Dominican side of Hispaniola island by Tuesday afternoon. Another 100 or so had been buried in a mass grave, according to Lt. Virgilio Mejia, of the Dominican National Rescue Commission.
Haiti's Interior Ministry said there were 83 confirmed deaths on the Haitian side but the toll was steadily rising as rescue workers and family members pulled corpses from the mud. More than 250 were unaccounted for in the Dominican Republic and 62 were missing in Haiti, mostly in the town of Fond Verrette, near Jimani.
"I've looked at the bodies in the morgue and couldn't recognize any of them," said Jude Joseph, 30, who came from Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince to sell rice at a border market and visit relatives in Bobmita, La Cuarenta and Barrio El Tanque, the neighborhoods that vanished.
More than 100 troops from the U.S.-led multinational force in Haiti flew to Fond Verrette, ferrying bottled water, medical supplies and food, according to U.S. Marines Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a spokesman for the multinational force. Troops were expected to return on Wednesday and would coordinate with aid agencies on relief and relocation efforts.
Although only one body had been recovered in Fond Verrette, Haitian officials said nearly 60 people were missing there and many were feared dead, Lapan said.
The U.S.-led 3,600-member multinational task force was sent to stabilize Haiti after rebels ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29. The force is to be replaced by a U.N. force that begins arriving on June 1.
About six miles outside of Jimani, emergency workers in surgical masks and white gloves watched as trucks dumped scores of corpses into a 15-foot ditch. No relatives were present for the burials.
Some of the dead on the Dominican side were believed to be family members of Haitian workers living there illegally and afraid to claim the bodies, officials said.
The Dominican government had issued an alert Sunday, warning that rivers may swell with the rains. But Jimani — more than 100 miles west of the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo — has only limited access to radio broadcasts.
People whose houses were still standing Tuesday scooped water from their living rooms. Chairs and mattresses floated in deep pools of water and dark clouds threatened more rain. Hundreds of houses were destroyed on both sides of the border.
As rescue workers and families pulled bodies from the mud, medical teams draped work areas with mosquito netting. The insects can carry parasites that cause malaria and dengue fever. Some people were also being given tetanus shots.
Many roads in both countries were still impassable.
Elena Diaz, 42, who lost her daughter in the floods, sobbed as she waited in a long line outside the morgue where she went to look for her son-in-law and three grandchildren.
"They found my daughter. Now I have to see if I have some family left," she said.
The floods were some of the deadliest in a decade.
In 1994, Tropical Storm Gordon caused mudslides that buried at least 829 Haitians. More recently, nearly 30 people died in September during floods caused by heavy rain in St. Marc, about 45 miles northwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
It sounds like the loss of trees and undergrowth could have caused these disasters. Have heard that the Haitian side of the island had been stripped.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) - Rescue workers dug through mud and debris for bodies as the death toll from devastating floods and landslides in the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti climbed to more than 600 on Wednesday.
Several hundred more people were missing after Monday's rivers of mud and swirling waters smashed houses in their path. The flooding followed days of torrential rain on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola that the two countries share.
In the devastated Dominican town of Jimani, rescue workers wore surgical masks and residents held handkerchiefs to their noses to ward off the stench of decomposing flesh as they used shovels and sticks to dig through mud and rubble for corpses.
Bulldozers dug holes to bury the dead where they were found, in ground where buildings stood a few days ago.
Officials in the Dominican Republic said the death toll had risen to 250, with almost all of the dead in Jimani, near the Haitian border where a river overflowed its banks before dawn and swept homes away as people slept.
In Haiti, the death toll was about 360.
The dead included 158 at Fond Verettes, a town that was devastated by a river of mud, 200 in the southeast region and two in the south, at Port-a-Piment, Haitian Justice Minister and acting Interior Minister Bernard Gousse told Reuters.
"We are sending shelters and food supplies to affected areas," said Gousse, who toured Fond Verettes on Tuesday.
In the area near the town of 40,000, floodwaters flattened fields of crops and ripped apart crude shacks fashioned from sticks and sheets of iron. Roads were littered with chunks of rock and gravel.
Residents pulled furniture and other belongings from the streets, where they had been swept by the flood, and assembled mud-caked possessions in stacks along the sides of the roads. The floods toppled a cross near a Voodoo temple.
Troops from a U.S.-led peacekeeping force in Haiti were helping relief efforts. On Tuesday, the force flew 4,737 gallons of bottled water, 500 boxes of fruit and another 500 of bread by helicopter to hungry residents of Fond Verettes.
The storm washed out the winding mountainside road from Port-au-Prince to Fond Verettes, leaving helicopters as the only means of transport to the town. Officials said it could take months to rebuild the road.
The disaster was a blow to Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where the population of 8 million struggles for food and shelter. Four out of five people live in poverty and only a quarter of Haitians has access to safe drinking water.
The peacekeeping force, numbering about 3,500 foreign troops, was sent to Haiti to try to restore order after an armed revolt forced out former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February, the latest chapter in a long history of political upheaval in the country.
SNIFFER DOGS SENT TO JOIN SEARCH
In the Dominican Republic, a country of 8.5 million people that is more prosperous than its neighbor but still has areas of deep poverty, relief workers and supplies of medicines, food, blankets were pouring into the Jimani area.
Dogs trained to sniff out bodies were sent to join the recovery effort. Relief workers wearing surgical masks hauled bodies on stretchers, while rescuers hacked through the rubble of stick shacks with hatchets searching for victims.
Some of the dead were found clinging to trees. Others were found still inside homes that had been shunted along by the tide of mud and water.
Army tents sprang up to shelter dozens of Dominican soldiers sent to help with relief efforts. A stream of helicopters flew in from the capital and trucks ferried wood to rebuild homes. A fire truck was used to clean mud from the local hospital.
More than 100 bodies were buried in a common grave in Jimani on Tuesday. Health officials worried about diseases breaking out and urged quick burials.
Radhames Lora Salcedo, director of the Civil Defense department, said that some 239 people were listed missing. But local residents believed the number of people unaccounted for could be as many as 500.
The European Union was preparing a package worth $2.43 million for flood victims, the European Commission said in Brussels. (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Daniel Morel in Jimani)
The Dominican government wharehouses Haitian workers into little shanty towns so tightly packed it's pathetic. If you want to get an idea of how the Spanish overlords treated African slaves watch how the DR government treats Haitian guest workers.
Flooding is a common thing where there is clear cutting absolutely.
After only a few inches of rain? Seems a bit much - no?
possibly if the soil is in poor condition
I missed this little tidbit before though...
Heavy rains caused the Solie River to burst its banks,
I imagine it's similar to when the Mississippi River acts up.
Haiti has become a dangerous place for flooding and mudslides because the people won't stop cutting down trees to make charcoal, leaving the country nearly entirely deforested. Without roots to retain the soil, even somewhat mild rains can cause a catastrophe.
BTTT
Death toll now up to 3300. I have friends in the DR and have come to love the place. Please keep these countries and their people in your prayers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.