Hurricane Matthew death toll increased to 11

The death toll from the week-long trek by Hurricane Matthew across the Caribbean has increased to eleven. The hurricane slammed into Haiti’s southwestern tip yesterday with howling 230 kilometres per hour winds.

It knocked down trees and tore off roofs in the poor and largely rural area, while inundating neighbourhoods in floodwaters and mud. With a key bridge washed out, impassable roads and phone communication cut off with Haiti’s hardest-hit area, there was no way to know how many people might be dead or injured.

Hours after Matthew made landfall on Haiti’s now-marooned southwestern peninsula, government leaders said they could not fully gauge the impact. Authorities said at least 5 deaths were blamed on the storm in Haiti, including a 26-year-old man who drowned trying to rescue a child who fell into a rushing river. The child was saved.

The mayor in flooded Petit Goave reported two people died there, including a woman who was killed by a falling electrical pole. The storm whipped at Cuba’s sparsely populated eastern tip last night, as it headed for a two-day run up the length of the Bahamas that would take it near the U.S. coast.

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