PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - The death toll in northern Haiti's flooding rose to 1,160, with 1,250 missing, Civil Protection Office spokesman Dieufort Delorge announced.
With most of those missing feared dead, the toll was expected to continue to mount as rescuers make their way through mud, high water and debris they have not yet been able to search.
The floods were spawned on September 18 by Jeanne, then a tropical storm, which has now strengthened into a hurricane that threatens Florida's Atlantic coast.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation on Friday criticised moves by authorities in Haiti to organise the speedy mass burial of flood victims and countered fears that dead bodies could raise the risk of epidemics.
"There's a myth that always comes up in disasters, and it's that dead bodies are a danger for survivors," WHO crisis expert Johanna Larusdottir said.
"There is no evidence in the history of disasters that shows that this is true," she told journalists.
Larusdottir said flooded and overflowing latrines were a far greater health risk than corpses.
Haiti's Interior Minister, Herard Abraham, announced Thursday that corpses would be buried swiftly in mass graves to counter the risk of epidemics following the flooding which has killed at least 1,147 people.
"What is very important is that those dealing with the burials are properly protected with protective gears to protect them from diseases. They might contract Hepatitis B," Larusdottir said.
The fear of epidemics caused by corpses could lead to scarce resources being wasted on vaccination or disinfection campaigns "which are politically more visible", she added.
Previous experience after an earthquake in India had shown that those resources were better spent on surveillance to spot outbreaks of disease, combined with providing clean drinking water and proper sewage disposal, according to the UN agency.
The WHO expert advised authorities to assemble the bodies of victims in places where they could be identified by relatives.
"It is much more important for the survivors to identify their dead ones and to be able to bury them according to their customs," Larusdottir said.