DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:The death toll from devastating floods in the Dominican Republic unleashed by tropical storm Noel could exceed 100, officials said yesterday, as rescuers on boats and helicopters continued to try to reach communities cut off by raging rivers.
The official body count yesterday reached 79 after days of torrential rain in the Dominican Republic, with 43 people listed as missing, the Emergency Operations Centre said.
Close to 65,000 people in the Caribbean country of about eight million had been driven from their homes.
"In reality we can't rule out that the number of deaths will exceed 100, that's what we fear, because there are still areas that we haven't been able to reach because of floods and collapsed bridges," said a civil defence official.
Noel turned into a hurricane on Thursday night as it raced away from the Bahamas toward Nova Scotia in Canada. It is expected to turn into a nontropical but still powerful storm when it brushes Cape Cod today.
In Haiti, the storm killed 43 people, while 15 were missing. Six thousand homes were damaged or destroyed and 14,000 people were living in shelters, said Alta Jean-Baptiste, head of the civil protection force.
One person died in Jamaica and another in the Bahamas - a radio DJ who drowned while trying to swim to safety.