Haitians ravaged by quake, hurricane and finally floods

Hurricane Tomas flooded the earthquake-shattered remains of a Haitian town yesterday, forcing families who had already lost their homes in one disaster to flee another.

Driving winds and storm surge battered Leogane, a seaside town west of the capital Port-au-Prince that was near the epicentre of the earthquake on January 12 and was 90 per cent destroyed.

Dozens of families in one earthquake refuge camp took their belongings through thigh-high water to high ground, waiting out the rest of the storm under blankets.

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"We got flooded out and we're just waiting for the storm to pass. There's nothing we can do," said resident Johnny Joseph.

The storm, with 85mph winds, was battering the western tip of Haiti's southern peninsula and the cities of Jeremie and Les Cayes.

One man drowned while trying to cross a river in a four-wheel drive in the rural area of Grand-Anse, said civil protection official Pierre Andre. The hurricane had earlier killed at least 14 people in the eastern Caribbean.

The centre of the storm was 157 miles from Port-au-Prince but it still draped black clouds over the city and dropped steady rain. Officials at the United States National Hurricane Centre in Miami predicted dangerous storm surges along the coast and possible flash floods and mudslides in mountainous areas.

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Haiti's civil protection department had urged people living in camps for the 1.3 million Haitians made homeless by the earthquake to go to the homes of friends and family.

Buses began circulating around the camps just after dark on Thursday to take residents away but few were willing to go. Four civil protection buses that pulled up at a camp in the Canape-Vert district left with only about five passengers on them.

Many camp residents stayed put out of fear they would lose their few possessions and be denied permission to return when the storm was over.

"I'm scared that if I leave they'll tear this whole place down. I don't have money to pay for a home somewhere else," said Clarice Napoux, 21, who lives with her boyfriend on a field behind the St Therese church in Petionville. They lost their house to the earthquake.

At the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in south-eastern Cuba, the forces cleared away any debris that could fly off in strong winds and suspended flights.