At least 136 people have died in Haiti as a result of
Tropical Storm Hanna, officials said Friday, as it sped toward the southeastern
US coast.
Forecasters at the Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) were also
tracking two other storms - Ike and Josephine - that have been brewing in the
Atlantic Ocean and heading west.
The centre of Hanna was located about 180 kilometres east of Daytona Beach, Florida, and the storm was moving northwest with maximum
sustained winds of 100 kilometres per hour.
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, residents were struggling to
cope in the aftermath of Hanna, just after being lashed by Hurricane Gustav -
which killed more than 70 people, and before that Tropical Storm Fay, which left
at least 40 dead two weeks ago.
Helicopters of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti travelled to flooded areas
to help Hanna's latest victims, but officials said many areas still remained
out of reach.
As stranded people waited for aid, fresh water and food, they gathered on roof
tops to escape the swirl of rising, muddy waters.
The authorities were also considering the possibility of evacuating the city of
Gonaives, which was seriously impacted by the storm.
Gonaives had already been devastated in September 2004, after 3,000 people died
in a mudslide caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne. On Friday, the disaster-prone
city was flooded and remained cut-off from the outside world.
Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, head of civil protection in Haiti, said that a red
alert issued Monday ahead of Tropical Storm Hanna's arrival, would be
maintained as the country braced itself for Ike.
With maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour, Ike was developing as a category 3 hurricane on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale and likely to hit the
Bahamas first, the NHC said.
"Some weakening is forecast during the next 24 hours, but Ike is expected
to be a major hurricane in a couple of days," the hurricane centre said
Friday.
In the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with
Haiti, Emergency Operations Centre director Juan Mendez warned that "the
evacuation of all areas at risk was launched Wednesday and is compulsory."
He said at least three dams in the country were at full capacity, and as
authorities started to release some of the water they moved residents from
neighbouring towns.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Josephine weakened Friday with sustained winds of 75 kilometres per hour. Its centre was west of the Cape Verde Islands and as it moved west-northwest
it was expected to weaken over the next 24 hours, dpa
reported.