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Noel Continues Its Caribbean Death March

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By JOSE MONEGRO, The Associated Press

Published: November 1, 2007

PIEDRA BLANCA, Dominican Republic - Tropical Storm Noel triggered mudslides and floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, pushing the death toll to 81 on Wednesday and forcing some parents to choose which children to save from the surging waters.

The storm lurched out of Cuba and stalled over the ocean, but was projected to skirt Florida and batter the Bahamas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A tropical storm watch was issued for parts of southeast Florida.

With rain still falling two days after the storm hit, rescuers were struggling to reach communities cut off by flooding on the island of Hispaniola. As they did, they found a rising toll of death and damage - at least 56 dead in the Dominican Republic, 24 in Haiti and one in Jamaica.

A swollen river overflowed its banks Monday night and swept away the hamlet of Piedra Blanca in the central Dominican Republic, forcing Charo Vidal to climb a tree. She watched her neighbor struggle to do the same nearby, clutching infant twins while water swept an older daughter away.

'She couldn't take care of all three,' Vidal said Wednesday. 'That is something very significant, to have a child snatched from your hands and you cannot do anything for them.'

The mother, Mary De Leon, was inconsolable. 'The river tore her from my hands as I held her,' she said through tears.

Sagrario Diaz, 42, a farmer, also struggled to hold his son in the surging waters but failed.

'I fought, I swear I tried to save him, but I couldn't,' Diaz said. 'I would like to die.'

A neighbor, Lucia Araujo, said she heard the boy scream: 'Daddy, I don't want to drown.'

In neighboring Haiti, floods rushed through houses in the capital's Cite Soleil slum, carrying away a 3-year-old boy as relatives frantically shouted for help and tried unsuccessfully to reach him through the muddy, debris-filled water.

Two people were killed when their house collapsed in a mudslide in the hillside suburb of Petionville, and at least three others died in Jacmel, where officials said 150 people were trapped on rooftops awaiting aid.

Some Haitian shelters were overwhelmed by evacuees.

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