Deadly rain

last updated 8 January 2015

Mapou, Haiti

The death toll from storms that swept through the Caribbean rose to 1,400 in Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic this week. The worst flooding struck in Haiti, where near-total deforestation has left the land prone to flash floods. Local officials recovered 300 bodies in the isolated town of Mapou and said hundreds more remained buried in mud. Fedner Salomond, 39, said water rushed into his home in the middle of the night, forcing him to scramble onto his roof without his three children. “The one in my hands, I had to let go,” he said. “I had to make a choice whether both of us died or I was saved.”