Quote of note:

The death toll was so high, in part, because almost all the trees on those hills are gone, and the soil is eroded, leaving no natural barrier for the annual spring rains. The trees have been cut for charcoal, the only product with much market value in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Grief as Haitians and Dominicans Tally Flood Toll
By TIM WEINER and LYDIA POLGREEN

…Government officials in both nations said the confirmed death toll from the devastating floods reached nearly 900 on Thursday. But they said it might go as high as 2,000, with the greatest losses in Haiti, making it one of the worst natural disasters in Caribbean history.

The death counts remain estimates from officials citing conflicting and sometimes second-hand information. They stood as high as 1,660 or more in Haiti, according to some government officials, and were confirmed at more than 300 in the Dominican Republic.

A total of at least 11,200 families, probably more, have been displaced by the flood in both nations, Red Cross workers here said. Thousands of homes and shanties have been destroyed in villages so poor and isolated that no one is exactly sure how many people lived there before the flood.

Two weeks of heavy rains, which continued Thursday, became a deadly torrent at dawn on Monday. In Haiti, as much as five feet fell in 36 hours on the town of Fond Verrettes, in a valley about 40 miles east of the capital, Port-au-Prince, officials said.