1,000 Feared Dead in Caribbean Storm
By AMY BRACKEN and PETER PRENGAMAN
Associated Press Writers

1:19 AM PDT, May 27, 2004

FOND VERRETTES, Haiti � Health officials feared up to 1,000 people could be dead in a single Haitian town from floods that wiped out villages across Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a figure that would nearly double the death toll from the disaster.

As search crews worked to recover bodies from devastated towns and villages in the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola, U.S.-led troops delivered bread, fruit and bottled water, and international aid employees fanned out to assess the damage.

The death toll was about 950, but the number was expected to jump. In the Haitian town of Mapou, as many as 1,000 people could be dead, said Margarette Martin, the government's representative for the southeast region in nearby Jacmel. Only about 300 bodies had been counted so far, said Dr. Yvon Lavissiere, the health director for the region.

Martin said officials believed hundreds more may have died because houses were submerged and rescuers saw bodies underwater that they were unable to retrieve.

The town of several thousand people, located 30 miles southeast of the capital of Port-au-Prince, is still isolated by mud and landslides. The town is in a valley that often floods when it rains.

In the Haitian border village of Fond Verrettes, meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian troops handed out food to hundreds of survivors who lined up seeking help.

Troops in the U.S.-led force were sent to stabilize Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster on Feb. 29. Since then the new interim government has struggled to provide even basic services. Left bankrupt, the government has scant resources to deal with natural disasters.