For all of Hurricane Matthew’s fury on the southern U.S. coast, the impact of the storm has been much greater in Haiti.
Information is slow in coming, but it now appears nearly 900 Haitians died in the storm and many more remain missing.
The number of deaths in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, jumped to at least 877 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of tolls from officials.
Officials say at least 30,000 homes were destroyed on one southwestern peninsula alone. Thick mud and water could be seen on roads in the town of Cavaillon, which is located on Tiburon peninsula.
Most of the fatalities were in towns and fishing villages around the western end of the peninsula, normally one of Haiti’s most picturesque regions.
The storm passed directly through the peninsula, driving the sea inland and flattening homes last Monday and Tuesday.
Jean Claude Dimanche, seen on Friday, sits in front of his home damaged by Hurricane Matthew in Jeremie. (Dieu Nalio Chery/Associated Press)
The vicious winds also flattened sugar plantations, knocked out electricity and left garbage and water in the streets.
In the the farming village of Chantal, the mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.
Girls hold hands as they help each other wade through a flooded street after the passing of Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti, on Thursday. (Dieu Nalio Chery/Associated Press)
“A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn’t get out,” said 27-year-old driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald.
“People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot,” said Jean-Donald, who had been married for only a year. His young daughter stood by his side, crying “Mommy.”
Haiti hit hard by Hurricane Matthew1:01
With cellphone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.
The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was en route to Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh-water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.
Canada allocates $3M for relief efforts
Canada is joining efforts to help Haiti recover from the storm.
“We just released a first amount of $300,000 to the Red Cross,” Marie-Claude Bibeau, Canada’s minister of international development, told CBC.
The storm left streets damaged in Jeremie, in western Haiti. The full scale of the devastation only became clear three days after Hurricane Matthew swept over Haiti. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)
“We are still waiting for the United Nations to submit their request, and we have our own team in the field right now,” providing food, water, sanitation and basic health services, she said.
The Canadian Disaster Assessment Team (CDAT) has been deployed to Haiti to assess needs and coordinate relief efforts, Global Affairs Canada said in a news release on Thursday.
“The Canadian government has set aside up to $3 million as an initial humanitarian response for those in Haiti and other countries in the region affected by Hurricane Matthew,” the release said.
More than 1.24 million people have been affected by the storm in Haiti, Global Affairs Canada said.
Power out in parts of Florida
Slightly more than 1 million customers in Florida remain in the dark in the aftermath of the storm, which moved on to the Carolinas early Saturday as a weaker but still large Category 1 storm.
Hurricane Matthew lashed Florida over a two-day period as it slowly moved along the Atlantic coast. State officials said Saturday that many people between Melbourne and Jacksonville are without power.
A 6 a.m. ET utility update showed that half of all customers in Jacksonville — nearly 216,000 — don’t have electricity.
To the south, roughly 85 per cent of Volusia County and almost all customers in Flagler County remained without electricity. Three-quarters of St. Johns County — home to historic St. Augustine — was without power. And nearly half the customers in Brevard County were without electricity.
Roughly 1.5 million Floridians were ordered to evacuate ahead of Matthew. State officials say more than 7,000 people spent Friday night in shelters.
The storm is blamed for at least four deaths in the state. Four people were killed last weekend in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.