|
Storms lash Caribbean
16/11/2005 10:17 - (SA)
Kingstown - Mudslides have killed two fishermen and destroyed seven homes as heavy rains, brought by a tropical depression, overflowed river banks and made roads impassable in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
On Tuesday, torrents of rain swept away two bridges outside of the Trinidad capital, Port-of-Spain, and flooding forced 20 schools to close in the country's east.
Richard Knabb, a meteorologist with the United States hurricane centre in Miami, said the poorly organised depression is moving south of the Dominican Republic. It is expected to strengthen into tropical storm Gamma on Wednesday or Thursday.
This would be the 24th named storm of an already record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. The previous record of 21 named storms had stood since 1933.
Gamma is not expected to threaten the United States.
Landslides destroy houses
On the Grenadine island of Bequia, a mudslide buried two men on Monday. The island's emergency management co-ordinator, Howie Prince, said the men were part of a party of 10 camping on a fishing trip near Rocky Bay.
Friends tried to dig them out, but were overtaken by a second landslide and fled. Emergency workers recovered the bodies of Randolph Matthews, 27, and Alwyn Williams, 32, on Tuesday. The men were from the fishing village of Questelles, on the main island of St Vincent.
Landslides destroyed three houses and rivers burst their banks, just outside Kingston. Several roads are impassable.
A man was hospitalised with a head injury after his house collapsed. Another lost all of his personal papers and most of his furniture.
In the northern town of Chateaubelair, villagers dug a woman out of her home after a landslide had trapped her inside.
National emergency officials said 18 homes suffered major damage. There have been 33 reported incidents of landslides.
More rain has been predicted
The airport in St Vincent is closed because of heavy rain and flooding in the terminal, as well as debris on the runway.
In Trinidad, a river in the country's east jumped its banks, leaving several homes flooded. Landslides have also left several roads impassable.
Emergency workers in Trinidad rescued 45 students and seven teachers who were left stranded in their school when a bridge was destroyed in Matelot, on the country's north coast, on Monday.
More rain is predicted. Authorities have urged villagers to evacuate areas near a river basin in Trinidad's central region. Flooding is also reported on Tobago - Trinidad's sister isle.
On Tuesday, the depression was about 426 kilometres south-southeast of the Dominican Republic. Maximum sustained winds are about 56 kilometres/hour.
It was expected to produce between three and six inches of rain over the Windward Islands and northern Venezuela, possibly also over Bonaire and Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba.
- AP
|
News
