PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - Floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne ravaged Haiti, killing more than 600 people in this deeply impoverished Caribbean nation, as well as 18 others elsewhere in the Caribbean.
At 0900 GMT Tuesday, Jeanne was gathering strength as it churned in the middle of the sea, some 715 kilometers (445 miles) from the Bahamas` Great Abaco island, creeping to the east-northeast at around 10 kilometers (six miles) per hour.
Packing winds of up to 150 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, the storm is expected to move to the east or southeast over the next 24 hours, according to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center.
Humanitarian organizations counted some 500 bodies at a hospital in the northern Haitian town of Gonaives, which was devastated by the storm, United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said Monday.
Another 56 people were killed in Port de Paix, 18 in Chansolme, 14 in Gros-Morne, nine in Pilate and eight in Ennery, officials said. The towns are located in the north and northwest of Haiti.
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who declared three days of national mourning, flew over a flooded area by helicopter on Sunday, describing it as a "vast sea."
"There is not one house in the city of Gonaives that is not flooded," Latortue said, adding that 80 percent of the population there, some 80,000 people, needs food.
Meanwhile, authorities were without news from the country`s second-largest island, La Tortue. MINUSTAH officials could not find the island of 26,000 people while flying over the region by helicopter on Sunday.
The UN mission resumed its emergency helicopter flights, ferrying food and medicine to Gonaives, Kongo-Doudou said.
"All humanitarian agencies have mobilized to assist in the devastated regions," including medical teams dispatched by the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders, he said.
One tonne of medicine will be airlifted to Gonaives, while the UN`s World Food Program will send convoys of food and water to the city about 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of the capital, Kongo-Doudou said.
Haitian authorities have declared the entire flood zone a disaster area, after Jeanne drenched the island of Hispaniola on Friday and Saturday, leaving 80 percent of Gonaives under water.
In the neighboring Dominican Republic, at least seven deaths were blamed on Jeanne.
Storms in May left at least 1,500 dead when floods swept through the border area between the two countries.
Jeanne also killed nine people in the Bahamas and two in Puerto Rico.
It was just the latest in a string of powerful, deadly storms to slam the Americas this year.
Hurricane Ivan, responsible for more than 100 deaths in the United States and the Caribbean, finally petered out over the weekend, but countries in the region were still reeling from the destruction left in its wake.
Thousands of homes were flattened by the third major storm, after hurricanes Charley and Frances, to hit the southern United States in six weeks.
Insurance experts have estimated the cost at up to 10 billion dollars, making it one of the most expensive hurricanes in US history.
US President George W. Bush has declared Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina disaster areas because of the damage left by Ivan, and declared another disaster in Puerto Rico because of Jeanne.
Canada said it was increasing its aid to victims of Ivan in the Caribbean by 770,000 US dollars, bringing its overall contribution to 1.3 million dollars.