Storm Jeanne Kills Dozens In Haiti

Tropical Storm Jeanne brought raging floodwaters to Haiti, killing at least 90 people in the battered nation and leaving dozens of Haitian families huddled on rooftops as the storm pushed further out into the open seas, officials said.

Floods tore through the northwestern coastal town of Gonaives and surrounding areas, covering crops and turning roads into rivers. U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and his interior minister toured the area in a U.N. truck Sunday, but were not able to reach many areas because of washed out roads.

"We don't know how many dead there are," Latortue said. "2004 has been a terrible year."

Catholic humanitarian agency Caritas Internationalis said its workers picked up 62 bodies in pickup trucks and counted another 18 at a morgue in Gonaives alone, said Rev. Venel Suffrard, the Vatican-based organization's director in the town. Suffrard said he expected the toll to rise.

The floods killed another 10 people in other parts of the country, mostly in the northwest, said Dieufort Deslorges, a spokesman for the Haitian Ministry of Interior.

A World Health Organization worker said he had toured parts of downtown Gonaives and saw people pushing wooden carts filled with cadavers. "There is no life left in the center of town," U.N. health worker Pierre Adam said.

The deaths came four months after floods killed more than 3,000 people on the Haitian-Dominican border. In February, a three-week rebellion ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left about 300 dead.

Several people were reported missing and feared dead. Unlike the Dominican Republic, much of Haiti is deforested and unable to hold back floodwaters.

Residents said the floods caught the town by surprise Saturday night. Jean-Baptiste Agilus, a 46-year-old teacher, said he watched the deluge engulf houses in his neighborhood, filling some with 13 feet of water.

Agilus said he saw his neighbor running from his house, saying his wife and two children, ages 12 and 15, were swept away in the rising waters.

"The water rushed into their home, all the homes in the neighborhood," he said. "It destroyed everything." Agilus said he would stay at a friend's house and heard others say they would sleep on the street.

Many families, though, remained on their flat concrete rooftops surrounded by bundles of belongings, mostly clothing.

Argentinean troops, part of a U.N. mission and responsible for patrolling Gonaives, treated at least 150 injuries, mostly bad cuts on feet and legs that required stitches, said Lt. Cmdr. Emilio Vera, a spokesman. Many people had stepped on shards of glass or pieces of metal left underwater by the force of the flood waters, he said.

Four suffered broken bones and were evacuated by helicopter to the capital, some 60 miles southeast of Gonaives, Vera said.

No doctors staffed Gonaives' main hospital, but it was being used as a morgue.

The Argentinean base was flooded except for a helicopter landing zone on higher ground. The commander of the Argentinean brigade, Lt. Col. Santiago Ferreyra, said that he drove back from the town of Ennery, some 18 miles north of Gonaives, after celebrating Chile's Independence Day on Saturday night with Chilean troops stationed there. He said all houses were destroyed along the way and he saw at least 10 bodies floating.

"There are a lot more that we haven't seen yet," Ferreyra said. "A lot of people are dead everywhere, it's just awful. It's not just Gonaives, it's the suburbs."

Authorities said they had not been able to reach the seaside shantytown of Raboteau — used by rebels during the uprising as their headquarters — and other neighborhoods.

Latortue declared Gonaives a disaster area and called on the international community to provide immediate humanitarian aid. More than 3,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops are in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country with a population of 8 million.

The erratic storm lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Friday and Saturday, drenching northern Hispaniola and triggering flash floods.

The storm has been blamed for at least 100 deaths. Seven died in neighboring Dominican Republic and a third death was reported in Puerto Rico on Sunday.

Much of Gonaives was still under waist-deep water Sunday — 6 feet deep in some places — and aid workers were having trouble evacuating all the people in need, Deslorges said.

U.N. peacekeeping troops were evacuating the injured to a former university, said Mamie Ward, a U.N. mission spokeswoman.

"Now the primary concern is getting people to a safe place," she said.

Jeanne lost strength even as it drove thousands of Dominicans from their homes late Friday. But a few hours after being downgraded to a tropical depression, it strengthened again on Saturday into a tropical storm with lashing winds.

The storm stalled over the Dominican after coming ashore Thursday as a hurricane, with winds near 80 mph. It had raged through Puerto Rico on Wednesday, dumping up to 2 feet of rain, flooding hundreds of homes and downing power lines.

Jeanne headed into open seas Sunday and didn't appear likely to hit the storm-battered southeastern United States. It was expected to turn south over the next two days and head back out into the Atlantic, away from U.S. states that have been battered by three major storms already this season.

President Bush declared the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a disaster zone on Friday, two days after Jeanne tore through the island. Many were without running water and electricity.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl posed no immediate threat to land, forecasters said. Its sustained winds strengthened to Category 4 force near 135 mph and were expected to get even stronger, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Separately, Tropical Depression 13 formed far out in the Atlantic.

By Amy Bracken
By Amy Bracken