Int'l aid pours in flood-hit Haiti

With bodies floating near the tops of palm trees and thousands of survivors isolated by mudslides, aid workers along with US-led troops planned new relief shipments Friday to remote towns where the death toll was swiftly rising.

The hundreds missing fed fears that the final toll could climb as high as 2,000 in the deadliest floods to hit the island of Hispaniola in recent memory.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

Steady rains returned Thursday as US Marines delivered drinking water and chlorine tablets to hundreds in the southern town of Mapou, where most houses were underwater.

As many as 1,000 were feared dead in Mapou, according to Margarette Martin, the government's representative in the southeast province. Officials said they had confirmed about 300 dead so far.

UN teams were trying to arrange boats to help recover bodies trapped under trees and in houses in Mapou, 30 miles southeast of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

"You can still see bodies in the water coming up," said Michel Matera, a UN technical adviser for disasters who traveled to Mapou on Thursday.

If workers can't recover corpses soon, he warned that could contaminate water sources. "There is a grave risk of an epidemic," Matera said.

The UN World Food Programme planned to try to deliver eight tons of food to Mapou on Friday, if troops could provide helicopters.

"A few months ago we couldn't move because of security. Now we can't move because the roads are destroyed," said Guy Gavreau, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme.

An estimated 10,000 people in 26 villages surrounding Mapou are in urgent need of help, Matera said.