The Hindu : International : Caribbean flood toll mounts to 900

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 28, 2004

International

International

Caribbean flood toll mounts to 900

SAN DOMINGO (DOMINICAN REPUBLIC), MAY 27. Rescuers clawed through rivers of mud and debris in ruined settlements in the Dominican Republic and Haiti yesterday, searching for survivors of floods which have now killed at least 900 people and left hundreds missing.

The border region between the two Caribbean countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, has been devastated by water and mud flows which have swept the area after 10 days of heavy rain.

Entire villages have been swept away and in their place is a swath of mud several hundred metres wide.

In Haiti, 358 bodies were recovered from several border towns, while in the Dominican Republic officials said that at least 250 bodies had been found, most around the town of Jimani, about 160 km west of the capital, Santo Domingo. Another 375 people have been reported missing on the Dominican side and presumed buried under the layers of mud. One man, Jude Joseph, who had gone to Jimani from Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, to sell rice at a border market and visit family members in Bobmita, La Cuarenta and Barrio El Tanque, found all those neighbourhoods swept away. ``I've been left with nothing,'' said the 30-year-old, whose nine relatives were still missing.

Another resident, Norma Cuevas, was desperately looking for her 63-year-old mother among dozens of other families searching for signs of life. ``We can't find her anywhere,'' she said. Jose Luis German, a spokesman for the Dominican Republic's National Emergency Commission, said relief workers were continuing to dig through the mud, aided in the search by sniffer dogs.

Although many of the bodies in Jimani have been identified, dozens of unidentified victims have been buried in mass graves. ``Some of them are Haitians who may have been here illegally and no one has come to claim them,'' Mr German said during a telephone interview. ``In some cases, entire families were killed and there is no one left to identify them.''

The heavy rains caused the Silie river to burst its banks, sending thousands of tonnes of rocks and sediment rushing into villages along the countries' border before dawn on Monday, sweeping residents from their beds. The death tolls have been particularly high because Haiti is 90 per cent deforested, and poor people on both sides of the border mostly live in wooden shacks.

— Guardian Newspaers Limited 2004

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