PORT-AU-PRINCE — At least four people have been killed and two others are missing after heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides across southwestern Haiti, the Associated Press reported, citing the country's Civil Protection Agency. The flooding affected more than 3,200 families, destroyed hundreds of homes and cut off dozens of communities, authorities said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in a flash update dated October 28, said three of the dead were in the Nippes department and one in the South-East, and that the two missing people are fishermen from Abricots, in Grand'Anse. Rains have battered the region since October 24, pushing several rivers over their banks.
Nippes is the hardest-hit department, OCHA said: 1,920 families there have been affected, 1,767 houses are flooded and 48 small houses were destroyed. In Grand'Anse, 630 houses flooded and four houses were washed away in Gommiers; the Corail community hospital, a national school and a public market were also flooded. In the South department, several hundred houses flooded, including about 200 in Les Cayes, where several sections of the Ravine du Sud dykes collapsed.
Haiti's Directorate General of Civil Protection has placed the entire Grand Sud on orange alert and partially activated emergency operations centres, OCHA said. Displaced families have taken refuge with relatives in Grand'Anse, in schools in the South and Nippes, and in a church in Baradères, while damaged dirt roads are making some communes hard to reach.
Agricultural and livestock losses are also reported in a region that was already suffering drought, OCHA said, warning that all the figures are still preliminary and that fuller assessment data is expected as field teams consolidate their reports. The floods deepen a crisis in Haiti, where armed gangs have displaced nearly 1.5 million people, according to Reuters.