- Updates from the Islands -

- - Haiti - -

• From: "maws_general_list" <maws_general_list at yahoo.com>
• Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:46:53 -0000

"Haiti floods leave 45 dead"
(Source: AFP, 10/13/07)

At least 45 people have died in the poverty-stricken island of Haiti
as homes were swept away in floods triggered by heavy rain, the
interior ministry said Friday.

Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told AFP 23 bodies had been
found Thursday in Cabaret, just north of the capital, and 12 were
missing after floodwaters hit their hillside homes, sweeping them away
in the current.

"The water carried off people living in houses built on the hillside,
sweeping them into the town," the minister said.

More than 6,000 people have had to leave their flooded homes in
Cabaret, where neighborhoods have been completely submerged, witnesses
told radio stations in Port-au-Prince.

The mountainous and impoverished Caribbean island nation faces regular
flash-flooding during the rainy season. Deforestation, which heightens
the risk of flooding, is rife as the poor collect every scrap of wood
for cooking.

Civil protection authorities said thousands of families were displaced
and hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged across the country. Roads
were swamped and plantations wiped out.

"Farming has been particularly affected and numerous crops have been
destroyed," Bien-Aime said.

Apart from Cabinet, further casualties were reported in other villages
after more than a week of rain. The ministry said the provisional
death toll for the whole of the country was at least 45.

The government released funds to send food and beds to the stricken
areas and the United Nations has offered to help. It already has
thousands of peacekeepers in the country, whose problems were
compounded by violent political strife in recent years.

In eastern Cuba, just west of Haiti, civil defense officials evacuated
more than 18,000 people amid flooding concerns from the same weather
system, which damaged at least 1,000 homes there.

And in Nicaragua at least 1,000 were evacuated in the Chinandega
region of the northeast, were a flood alert was issued, emergency
services told AFP. Heavy rain there has caused major rivers to flood
their banks.

//end//

• From: W W <pilotmaf at yahoo.com>
• Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 12:13:00 -0700 (PDT)

We had light winds in Port au Prince until very early
Sunday morning.  Then pretty strong winds and light
rain.  Winds died down before sunrise.  It has
continued with light rain all day Sunday.  From
1:00-14:00 Sunday we have only had .28" of rain at my
house.  From the looks of things up higher on the
mountains possibly got more rain.  I have not heard of
any flooding or damage on the Southern coast yet.


      
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• From: Andreas Holmgren <mobali at hotmail.com>
• Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:18:07 +0200

• From: Andreas Holmgren <mobali at hotmail.com>
• Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 03:16:24 +0200

• From: W W <pilotmaf at yahoo.com>
• Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 06:12:51 -0700 (PDT)

Light rain started last night and is still raining
this morning.  This is very unusual  for Haiti.  I
have only seen it raining in the morning about 5 times
in 7 years.  Last night we got 68/100 inch.  As of 8am
it is starting to rain harder. 


 
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