23185: (Chamberlain) Haiti flood toll tops 300 from Jeanne (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept 20 (Reuters) - More than 300 people died
in Haiti from flooding and mudslides triggered by Tropical Storm Jeanne,
according to aid workers who said half of the northern city of Gonaives was
still underwater.
     "We have counted 250 bodies at the hospital morgue in Gonaives," U.N.
spokesman Toussaint Congo-Doudou said after heavy rains sent a wall of
muddy water crashing through northern towns over the weekend.
     U.N. peacekeepers had unconfirmed reports of another 150 dead in
Gonaives, said U.N. coordinator Adama Guindo.
     The northern city was the birthplace of Haiti's independence from
France 200 years ago and it was where an armed revolt began this year that
led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     Forty-seven people were also confirmed killed in the northwest
province, around the town of Port-de-Paix, said Henry Max Thelus, a
government official. Eight deaths were recorded elsewhere, bringing the
total confirmed toll to 305.
     Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue declared three days of national
mourning.
     Half of Gonaives remained under water, and 80 percent of its inner
urban population of over 100,000 had been affected by the floods, which at
one point forced hundreds of people to take cover on the roofs of their
homes, said Anne Poulsen, spokeswoman for the U.N.'s World Food Programme
in Haiti.
     Twelve trucks carrying 40 metric tons of food would leave the capital
Port-au-Prince Monday and head to Gonaives, said Poulsen.
     The World Health Organization planned to deliver medicine, and 15
trucks from the Brazilian-led U.N. force had gone to reinforce a detachment
of Argentine peacekeepers stationed in the city.
     "It's not just people's houses, it's also crops and livestock that
have been washed away. So it will take quite some months before people will
be able to cope by themselves again," Poulsen said. "Nature is tough on
Haiti."
     Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is frequently lashed by
flash floods and mudslides because of extensive deforestation. Around 2,000
Haitians died when extensive floods washed away villages near the
Dominican-Haitian border in May.
     Congo-Doudou said that at the height of the flooding, the water was 9
feet (3 metres) deep in Gonaives and the current was so strong it swept
away heavy military trucks. U.N. helicopters were used to pluck people from
their rooftops.
     A woman who was about to give birth in the street as muddy waters
swirled around her legs was rescued by U.N. police.
     The fresh blow from nature came on top of bloody political conflict
that saw Aristide flee into exile on Feb. 29. A Brazilian-led U.N. force is
trying to keep the peace.
     Jeanne, which last Thursday briefly became a hurricane with winds in
excess of 75 mph (122 kph), also killed 11 people in the Dominican
Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and two in the
U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
     The latest cyclone in an unusually busy Atlantic hurricane season, the
storm was moving slowly northward to the east of the Bahamas at 11 a.m.
(1500 GMT) on Monday, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph).
     It presented no immediate threat to land, the U.S. National Hurricane
Center said, and was expected to swing to the northeast. That would spare
Florida, hit by three big hurricanes in the past five weeks.
     Likewise, powerful Hurricane Karl presented no immediate threat to
land as it swirled in the open Atlantic, 1,010 miles (1,620 km)
east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles, with winds of 120 mph (195 kph).
     Meanwhile, a new tropical storm formed in the Atlantic on Monday.
Tropical Storm Lisa was 810 miles (1,305 km) west of the Cape Verde islands
by 11 a.m., with 60 mph (95 kph) as it began to take a westerly track that
would move it through the Caribbean toward the Gulf of Mexico.