DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Families mourn victims of floods
Three neighborhoods of wooden shacks were swept away early Monday.
JIMANI, Dominican Republic (AP) -- The coffins of dozens of children lined this town's streets after floods swept away whole villages and sent desperate families into the darkness and mud in a frantic search for loved ones. At least 360 were dead and hundreds missing.
Trucks dumped more than 100 bodies into a mass grave outside of Jimani, a town of about 10,000 on the Haitian border, on Tuesday. Sobbing families, meanwhile, waited for the tiny coffins of their children to be buried in cemeteries.
Heavy rains caused the Solie River to burst its banks, washing away three neighborhoods of wooden shacks built by Haitian migrants working in this Dominican town. Many residents were still asleep when the torrent of mud swept through the town before daybreak Monday.
"We can't find her anywhere!" cried Norma Cuevas, 32, as she desperately searched for her 63-year-old mother. She was among dozens of people clawing through mud with their bare hands Tuesday in a search for relatives.
Number of deaths unclear
An Associated Press reporter counted at least 180 bodies on the Dominican side of Hispaniola island by Tuesday afternoon. An additional 100 or so had been buried in a mass grave, according to Lt. Virgilio Mejia, of the Dominican National Rescue Commission.
Haiti's Interior Ministry said there were 83 confirmed deaths on the Haitian side but the toll was steadily rising as rescue workers and family members pulled corpses from the mud. More than 250 were unaccounted for in the Dominican Republic and 62 were missing in Haiti, mostly in the town of Fond Verrette, near Jimani.
"I've looked at the bodies in the morgue and couldn't recognize any of them," said Jude Joseph, 30, who came from Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince to sell rice at a border market and visit relatives in Bobmita, La Cuarenta and Barrio El Tanque, the neighborhoods that vanished.
U.S.-led force helping
More than 100 troops from the U.S.-led multinational force in Haiti flew to Fond Verrette, ferrying bottled water, medical supplies and food, according to U.S. Marines Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a spokesman for the multinational force. Troops were expected to return today and would coordinate with aid agencies on relief and relocation efforts.
Although only one body had been recovered in Fond Verrette, Haitian officials said nearly 60 people were missing there and many were feared dead, Lapan said.
The U.S.-led 3,600-member multinational task force was sent to stabilize Haiti after rebels ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29. The force is to be replaced by a U.N. force that begins arriving Tuesday.
About six miles outside of Jimani, emergency workers in surgical masks and white gloves watched as trucks dumped scores of corpses into a 15-foot ditch. No relatives were present for the burials.
Some of the dead on the Dominican side were believed to be family members of Haitian workers living there illegally and afraid to claim the bodies, officials said.