Villagers die in Haiti floods

Cabaret was badly hit by torrential rain and the
death toll is expected to rise [AFP]

At least 23 people have been killed in flooding at a village in Haiti in the wake of torrential rain, a government official has said. The deaths on Thursday in Cabaret, about 30 km north of the capital Port-au-Prince, brought the death toll from floods and mudslides across the country to at least 31 in the last two weeks.

"In the Cabaret area alone, 23 people are confirmed dead but there could be more and we are still in the process of assessing the situation," Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, Haiti's interior minister, said on Friday.

No respite

Bien-Aime said emergency supplies were being sent to Cabaret, where at least 1,000 people have been made homeless. Meterologists said heavy rain was set to continue across Haiti and its neighbours for the foreseeable future. In eastern Cuba, west of Haiti, more than 18,000 people have been evacuated amid concerns of flooding. Due to deforestation, Haiti is more vulnerable to deadly floods than countries such as Cuba and Jamaica, which have also been swept by torrential rain recently. About 90 per cent of Haiti's forests have been cleared, mostly to make charcoal for cooking

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