DR: Flash flood produces high death toll

The death toll from Sunday’s flash flood in the watershed of the Soleil River (called Blanco River in Jimani) continues to rise, as hundreds of unidentified corpses are being buried in communal graves. The Soleil, normally just a dry creek bed, filled with run-off from the torrential rains that fell Friday and Saturday on Haiti’s barren hillsides. Heart-wrenching pictures of bodies being carted like sides of beef adorn this morning’s El Caribe. As many as 195 bodies have been found. At one location in Boca de Cachon, 107 bodies were buried in a mass grave. According to the report, no photographs were taken of these deceased nor were they identified in any way.

As of 11pm last night, official reports cited 195 dead and 500 persons missing, as reported in Hoy newspaper. The Listin Diario reports a death toll of 280. Onsite doctors told Hoy that as many as 800 to 1000 deaths could be expected. At the scene of the tragedy there is a stench of death and a never-ending series of agonizing vignettes taking place: a small boy looking for his mother, a mother of four who cannot find her children and many more.

The National Emergency Commission (CNE), the Dominican Red Cross and the Ministry of Public Health are all working to secure the location and retrieve as many human remains as possible.