Hurricane Matthew: Haiti death toll soars as storm nears US

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Haiti Hurricane Matthew — (Image credit: Hector Retamal)

Hurricane Matthew's devastating trail through Haiti has killed more than 300 people, say officials, as the full picture of the storm's impact emerged.

Senator Herve Fourcand told AFP more than 300 people are believed to have lost their lives in the 125mph winds and severe flooding.

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In Jeremie, the capital of the south-western Grande Anse region, officials estimate 80 per cent of buildings have been reduced to rubble, the BBC reports. Across the wider Sud province, at least 30,000 homes are thought to have been destroyed.

Thousands have been left without communication lines and electricity, while fresh food and water are said to be running low in some areas cut off by the storm.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates 350,000 people are in need of assistance.

Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is still recovering from the aftermath of the massive 2010 earthquake which killed more than 100,000 people and destroyed much of the nation's fragile infrastructure.

Neighbouring Dominican Republic also felt the effects of the storm, with four people reported dead so far.

Hurricane Matthew has moved north-west since Wednesday, brushing past Cuba and Bahamas with some damage but no fatalities reported. It is currently approaching Florida, where the Weather Channel reports almost a quarter of a million people are already without power.

Three southern US states have declared states of emergency and upwards of two million people have been advised to leave their homes.

Mandatory evacuations have been taking place in low-lying parts of Florida and Georgia, apparently with some resistance.

"People do not seem to get it and are not leaving," Sheriff William Snyder told NBC News. "I'm not saying this to be theatrical... I asked my captain of detectives if he had body bags because if we get 140mph winds in mobile home parks, we are going to have fatalities."

Although the hurricane has now been downgraded from a category four storm – the second most severe classification – to a category three, with winds of up to 120mph, it still poses a serious risk to life and infrastructure.

Hurricane Matthew: Death toll rises as storm intensifies

6 October

Hurricane Matthew has left 23 people dead and a further three missing in Haiti, officials have said, but numbers could rise when communications are re-established with the hardest-hit part of the country.

Matthew's devastating effects have made it impossible to gauge the extent of the damage in Grande Anse in the southern tip of the island, which was in the eye of the storm.

A key bridge has been destroyed, roads are impassable and phone communications are down, reports the BBC. More than 21,000 people have been evacuated to temporary shelters.

"We're making every effort to care for these people. The priority is drinking water and food," said a civil protection spokesman.

Christian Aid's manager in Haiti, Prospery Raymond, told The Guardian the wind and rain had torn roofs from houses, swept away plantations, ripped trees from the earth and drowned livestock.

"The road to Grande Anse is not open because one of the main bridges has collapsed," he said.

"Communication is not working. We don't have much information on the number of people who've died, but the main thing is shelter and housing. A lot of people have lost their roofs or had their houses destroyed. The roof of the big church in Les Cayes, which is one of the symbols of the city, blew away."

Matthew, a category four storm, has now moved to the coast of Bahamas and is expected to intensify on approach to the US mainland.

President Barack Obama has warned those in the hurricane's path to take any evacuation orders seriously, adding the core of the storm could have a "devastating effect" if it strikes Florida.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, meanwhile, has told 1.5 million residents they have 24 hours to "get ready, or better yet, get going".

Hurricane Matthew batters Haiti and Dominican Republic - in pictures

5 October

Six years after a deadly earthquake in Haiti made global headlines, the country has been battered by what the Washington Post calls "one of the strongest storms in a decade".

Hurricane Matthew reached Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday and raged across the two countries, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake as it whipped up winds of 145mph, the BBC reports.

Photos show houses torn apart, rivers overflowing their banks and streets strewn with debris.

Heavy rains continued to fall after the storm passed and flooding in low-lying coastal regions has sent thousands fleeing their homes.

At least 11 people have been reported dead so far: five in Haiti, four in the Dominican Republic and one each in Colombia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. With search efforts still ongoing and communications down in the hardest-hit areas, that toll is likely to rise in days to come.

"It's much too early to know how bad things are," Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, of Haiti's Civil Protection Agency, told Associated Press. "But we do know there are a lot of houses that have been destroyed or damaged in the south."

Charities around the world are scrambling to send help to Haiti, whose infrastructure is still stretched to breaking point from the after-effects of the 2010 earthquake - the Washington Post reports that tens of thousands of Haitians continue to live in tent cities.

Hurricane Matthew is now heading for the south-east coast of the United States, where more than a million people are to be evacuated from South Carolina.