At least 270 dead in Caribbean floods

At least 270 people have been killed in floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, many of them swept away when rain-swollen…

At least 270 people have been killed in floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, many of them swept away when rain-swollen rivers burst their banks, authorities in the neighboring countries said today.

About 110 bodies had been recovered from the Jimani area of western Dominican Republic, near the border with Haiti, and some 200 people were believed to be missing, officials there said.

In Haiti, up to 100 people were killed in the town of Fond Verettes and the surrounding countryside, and 40 more died in the southeast region of the country in the floods of the past two days, sources close to Haiti's Civil Protection Office said.

Twenty others died near the Haitian-Dominican border in the south of the country, said a spokesman for a local humanitarian organization. The island of Hispaniola, which the two countries share, has been lashed with torrential rains in recent days.