22086: (Craig) NYT: Flood Toll Rises to 1,950 in Haiti and Dominican Republic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


Flood Toll Rises to 1,950 in Haiti and Dominican Republic
May 27, 2004
By REUTERS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 26 - 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 bodies were found in Mapou, a rural southeastern town
where communications are poor, said Margareth Martin, the
head of the civil protection office for the 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's 8 million people and the Dominican Republic's 8.5
million.

Haiti's death toll stood at 1,660, including 1,000 in
Mapou, 500 elsewhere in the southeast, 158 in the riverside
town of Fond Verrettes, and 2 in the south, at
Port-a-Piment.

The Dominican authorities said they had recovered 300
bodies, mostly from Jimani, near the Haitian border, where
a river overflowed its banks before dawn and swept homes
away as people slept.

In Haiti, troops from an American-led peacekeeping force
flew in bottled water, fruit and bread by helicopter to
Fond Verrettes, where the storm washed out the winding
mountain 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.

The Dominican president, Hipolito Mejia, declared a day of
mourning for Thursday.

In the town of Jimani, bodies were taken from the mud and
from Lago Enriquillo, a lake where they had been swept by
the raging waters. Survivors said the floodwaters rose to
15 feet. Bodies 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 away the dead on
stretchers, while others hacked through the rubble of stick
shacks with hatchets searching for bodies.

Many were buried in mass graves. Bulldozers dug holes to
bury others where they were found, in ground where
buildings stood a few days ago.

Several hundred people were still missing.

Relief workers
and supplies of medicines, food, blankets poured into the
Jimani area. Army tents sprang up to shelter dozens of
Dominican soldiers helping with relief efforts.

The European Union was preparing a package worth $2.43
million for flood victims, the European Commission said in
Brussels. The United States Agency for International
Development said it was giving $50,000 to help the relief
effort and was sending two disaster experts to evaluate
damage. Japan also said it was giving $100,000 in emergency
aid.

In New York - with a Dominican population of 400,000 and a
Haitian one of 118,800 - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sent a
team of three disaster management specialists from the
city's Office of Emergency Management to the Dominican
Republic to make recommendations for aid to the Dominican
Republic and Haiti.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/international/americas/27cari.html?ex=1086650353&ei=1&en=1fe4fb271849b8d3
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company