PORT-AU-PRINCE - The death toll from Tropical Storm Isaac has surged to 19 in Haiti as reports of damage and destruction trickle in from remote areas, authorities said Monday. The storm tore over Haiti early Saturday, visiting renewed misery in an impoverished country where an estimated 400,000 people are still living in tent camps more than two years after a catastrophic 2010 earthquake killed 250,000 people. By Monday, 19 people had been confirmed killed, and six were missing, in storm-related incidents including six people in the hard-hit west and five people in the south, civil defence officials said.
Another 15,000 people had to be evacuated and 335 homes were destroyed, they said. Civil defence chief Alta Jean-Baptiste said, “We compile the data as best we can, but we don’t have the technological means to get data in fast. There are regions we haven’t been to yet.” Some 5,000 Haitians were evacuated from tent camps ahead of the storm, which was in the Gulf of Mexico Monday after sweeping Cuba and lashing the Florida Keys. It was on a track headed toward the New Orleans area almost seven years after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.