PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - A disaster relief operation gathered pace after more than 600 people were killed in floods that carried some people away from their homes to their deaths in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The northern town of Gonaives, where about 500 bodies have been found, was virtually cut off by floodwaters and there have been no communications with the Tortue island off the north coast since Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Haiti at the weekend, unleashing torrential rainfall.
The first World Food Programme (WFP) trucks carrying food and medicines were to leave Port-au-Prince on Tuesday but were expected to take up to three days to cover the 170 kilometers (105 miles) to Gonaives, Guy Gauvreau, the WFP spokesman in Haiti told Radio France Internationale.
The Haiti civil protection office said that about 170,000 people in the Gonaives region were without food, water and electricity.
An official at the main mortuary in Gonaives, told AFP by telephone of appalling conditions at the established. He said many bodies were in an advanced stage of decomposition and that the air was not safe to breathe.
Foreign ministry official Luc Saint-Fleur, told on a Port-au-Prince radio station how five relatives were killed in Gonaives, including his father and a sister. He said his mother was narrowly saved after being carried away by a torrent.
Gauvreau had better news of Tortue island, which some reports said had disappeared following the storm. He said a helicopter had flown over the island on Monday and that no major problems had been seen for the population of 26,000.
The UN Stabilisation Mission force in Haiti, which is meant to be on peacekeeping duty, has said 500 bodies had been found in Gonaives and that the toll in the city of 200,000 people was expected to rise.
Another 56 people were killed in Port de Paix, 18 in Chansolme, 14 in Gros-Morne, nine in Pilate and eight in Ennery, according to the Haiti civil protection office. All the towns are in the north and northwest of Haiti.
Authorities in the Dominican Republic said 23 people had been killed there by Tropical Storm Jeanne. There were also nine dead in the Bahamas and two in Puerto Rico.
Toussaint Kongo Doudou, a spokesman for the UN military mission, said UN helicopters were carrying emergency supplies to Gonaives and aid groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) had also sent teams to the stricken town.
France has also announced that it will send five tonnes of tents, emergency covers, water purification equipment and medicine to Haiti.
Haiti`s Prime Minister Gerard Latortue flew over the flooded zone by helicopter on Sunday and called it a "vast sea". "There is not one house in the city of Gonaives that is not flooded," Latortue said.
Storms in May left at least 1,500 dead in Haiti and the Dominican Republic when floods swept through the border area between the two countries.
Jeanne has since move back out into the Atlantic and is no longer considered a major threat.
It was just the latest in a string of powerful, deadly storms to slam the Americas this year.
Hurricane Ivan, responsible for more than 130 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.