22080: (Chamberlain) Dominican, Haiti floods death toll nears 2,000 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 26 (Reuters) - The death toll from
devastating floods and landslides in Haiti and the Dominican Republic rose
to at least 1,950 on Wednesday with the discovery of more than 1,000 bodies
in a Haitian town.
     The toll rose dramatically when the bodies were found in Mapou, a
rural southeastern Haitian town where communications are poor, said
Margareth Martin, the head of the civil protection office for Haiti's
Southeast region.
     Rescue workers dug through mud and debris for bodies three days after
torrential rains sent rivers of mud and swirling waters through Hispaniola,
the Caribbean island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
     Haiti's death toll stood at 1,660, including 1,000 in Mapou, 500
elsewhere in Haiti's Southeast region, 158 in the riverside town of Fond
Verettes, and two in the south, at Port-a-Piment.
     Authorities in the neighboring Dominican Republic said they had
recovered 300 bodies, mostly from the disaster in Jimani near the Haitian
border, where a river overflowed its banks before dawn and swept homes away
as people slept.
     In Haiti, troops from a U.S.-led peacekeeping force flew helicopter
loads of bottled water, fruit and bread to the town of Fond Verette, where
the storm washed out the winding mountainside road from Port-au-Prince and
cut off ground transportation to the town of 40,000,
     The floodwaters flattened fields of crops and ripped apart crude
shacks fashioned from sticks and sheets of iron. 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.
     Haiti is 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.
     In the Dominican Republic, President Hipolito Mejia declared a day of
national mourning for Thursday.
     In the devastated Dominican town of Jimani, bodies were taken from the
mud and from Lago Enriquillo, a lake where they had been swept by the
raging waters. Corpses were found crushed against walls, clinging to tree
trunks and buried in the mud.
     Dogs trained to sniff out bodies were sent to join the recovery
effort. Relief workers wore surgical masks against the stench of
decomposing flesh and hauled bodies on stretchers, while rescuers hacked
through the rubble of stick shacks with hatchets searching for corpses.
     Many were buried in mass common graves. Authorities worried about
diseases breaking out if bodies were left unburied. Bulldozers dug holes to
bury others where they were found, in ground where buildings stood a few
days ago.
     Several hundred people were also still missing.
     Survivors in Jimani said the flood waters reached 15 feet (3 metres)
high.
     Police officer Juan de la Cruz Mota Dotel said he lost two of his
children and his wife in the disaster, along with 22 other members of his
extended family. A third child, a 3-year-old daughter, survived, clinging
onto a gravestone in a cemetery.
     The Dominican Republic, a country of 8.5 million people, 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. 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.
     The European Union was preparing a package worth 2 million euros
($2.43 million) for flood victims, the European Commission said in
Brussels. The United States announced it was giving $50,000 dollars to help
the relief effort and was sending two disaster experts to evaluate the
damage. Japan also said it was giving $100,000 in emergency aid.

  (Additional by Manuel Jimenez in Santo Domingo and Daniel Morel in
Jimani)