Floods and mudslides have killed more than 500 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, many of them swept to their deaths when rain-swollen rivers burst their banks, authorities in the two neighboring Caribbean countries said on Tuesday.  

In the hard-hit Haitian town of Fond Verettes, floodwaters rose from a previously dry riverbed and swept through the streets, washing away buildings or burying them under tons of rock and gravel. At least 158 people were killed in the town of 40,000, local officials said.

Margareth Martin, head of the civil protection office for the Southeast department, said at least 200 people were killed in that part of the country.

The flooding followed days of torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Thousands were left homeless in the two countries.

Canadian troops and US Marines were flying helicopters with water and relief supplies to the worst-hit part of Haiti, said a spokesman for a US-led peacekeeping force.

Some 135 people were killed in the Jimani area of western Dominican Republic, near the border with Haiti, and more than 200 people were believed to be missing, officials at an emergency operations center said. Ten people died in other parts of the Dominican Republic.

In Fond Verettes, 16-year-old Joane Saint Fort returned from a trip to the capital to find her home and family gone.

"I went to see my aunt in Port-au-Prince for the weekend. Now I came back and I cannot find my house," she said. "It was right here but there is no house. My mother and two younger brothers were living here."

The flooding scoured a section of town half a mile long and 1,000 feet wide. It swept away the town's tax office and courthouse. Only half of the police station remained.

"It appears there have been many victims that have been washed out of the village or may be buried underneath the rubble," said Col. Glen Sachtleben, chief of staff for the multinational task force in Haiti, as he stood among the rocks and gravel covering areas where buildings once stood.

Residents asleep when homes engulfed

At least 540 houses were destroyed or buried, another 1,500 were damaged and 3,000 people needed emergency aid, said a United Nations development official who toured the town.

In addition to those killed in Fond Verettes, about 40 people died in the southeastern part of Haiti and 20 more were reported dead at the border near Jimani, according to government sources and humanitarian officials.

"This is a disaster. We are calling on Haiti's friends to help," Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said after being flown to the disaster site on a Canadian military helicopter.

The foreign peacekeepers, who number about 3,500, are in Haiti to try to restore order after an armed revolt ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February.

Haiti, with a population of about 8 million, is the poorest country in the Americas. The Dominican Republic, 8.5 million people, is more prosperous, but parts of the country, such as the Jimani area, are still grindingly poor.

The devastation in Jimani occurred when a river burst its banks early on Monday, sending flood waters rushing through poor neighborhoods and destroying hundreds of fragile homes.

Several survivors told local media they had been asleep when the floods hit their homes.

"It was all very fast, I couldn't do anything," said Ramon Perez Feliz, who lost his sister and two nephews. "I was saved because the current threw me away, out of the river bed."

Television stations showed scenes of dozens of bodies piled up in the morgue at Jimani, many of them children and some caked with mud. Rescue workers said more dead could be buried under the mud and debris.

"It has been a great tragedy," said Dominican President Hipolito Mejia, who sent army doctors, medical supplies and food to shelters set up for people who lost their homes.

The Dominican weather service said that about 10 inches of rain fell in the last 24 hours in the Jimani area.

(China Daily via agencies, May 26, 2004)