By AFP,
Port-Au-Prince : At least 61 people have died in Haiti as Tropical Storm Hanna triggered widespread floods in several cities, the civil protection agency said Wednesday.
At least 37 people were found dead in northern Haiti, including 21 in the flooded city of Gonaives, civil protection said. The rest were found dead in other parts of the country.
The tropical storm has also forced tens of thousands of people to seek temporary refuge, officials have said. Hanna is the third major storm to rip through the area in as many weeks, and comes as two more storm systems brewed in the Atlantic.
“It is only a very partial toll, given the situation in Gonaives which is still under water,” said civil protection director Alta Jean-Baptiste.
The flooding in Gonaives raised memories of the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004, when about 3,000 people were killed, mostly in the northern city. Haiti is especially prone to flooding and landslides due to widespread deforestation on its section of Hispaniola.
Hanna pounded Haiti one week after it was hit by Hurricane Gustav, which killed 77 people. Two weeks ago, Tropical Storm Fay sparked flooding in Haiti that left about 40 people dead.
As Hanna churned, the government of the Bahamas issued a hurricane warning ahead of the arrival of the storm while the US embassy in Nassau announced it would be closed Thursday and Friday.
As of 2100 GMT Hanna’s center was about 95 kilometers (60 miles) west-northwest of the Grand Turk Island moving north at near 19 kilometers (12 miles) an hour, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center reported. The storm packed maximum sustained winds of near 95 kilometers (60 miles) per hour, with higher gusts.
“Gradual strengthening is expected… and Hanna could become a hurricane tomorrow (Thursday),” the Center said, adding that on its forecast track, Hanna’s center “should be moving through or just east of the central and northwestern Bahamas over the next 24 to 36 hours.”
The center’s extended forecast showed Hanna heading towards the Atlantic coast of north Florida, then turning north and making landfall Sunday around North Carolina, on the US central Atlantic coastline.
Two other storms were churning in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Ike strengthened to hurricane status, though the storm was still far from any of the islands east of the Caribbean like the Bahamas.
At 2100 GMT, the center of Ike was about 1,080 kilometers (670 miles) northeast of the Leeward Islands and was moving in a west-northwest direction near 30 kilometers (18 miles) an hour, the hurricane center said.
Ike, the fifth hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic season, packed maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers (80 miles) per hour, making it a Category One hurricane, the weakest on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.
“Some additional strengthening is forecast during the next day or two,” the hurricane center said, adding that it was “too early to determine” what land if any could be affected by Ike.
And Tropical Storm Josephine, churning in the eastern Atlantic 605 kilometers (375 miles) west of the southernmost Cape Verde islands, was expected to weaken as it moved west-northwest Thursday. However a Hurricane Center model forecast the system regaining strength by early next week.