Toll mounts in Haiti flooded city

Families sought refuge on rooftops as the waters rose

At least 250 people died when floodwaters tore through Haiti in the wake of tropical storm Jeanne, a UN spokesperson says.

Almost the entire northern coastal city of Gonaives was submerged by the rising waters.

People were left huddled on rooftops and roads around the city were transformed into rivers.

"We have counted 250 bodies at the hospital morgue in Gonaives," Toussaint Congo-Doudou told Reuters news agency.

Many others were reported missing and injured in the country, prone to floods due to massive deforestation.

Jeanne caused extensive flooding and a number of deaths in the neighbouring Dominican Republic before moving north into the Atlantic.

People stranded

Two days of steady rain sent torrents down the mountains of northern Haiti, causing a river to burst its banks, officials said.

Some people stepped on glass under the water

Jean-Baptiste Agilus, a 46-year-old teacher in Gonaives, said residents were completely unprepared for the deluge which filled some houses with 4m (13ft) of water.

He said a neighbour and her two children, aged 12 and 15, were swept away in the waters.

"The water rushed into their home, all the homes in the neighbourhood," he said.

"It destroyed everything."

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Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said he did not know how many people had died in the flooding, but added that 2004 has been a terrible year for Haiti.

Emergency aid

The UN World Food Programme said its first convoy of 12 trucks carrying emergency food aid was heading towards the city of Gonaives.

"This area is really poor and people are already suffering from the impact of political unrest and natural disasters - it is really not what this country needed," Anne Poulsen told BBC News Online from the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

Waters have begun to subside, allowing road access to Gonaives, but half of the area remains underwater, she said.

"People are in dire need of help - they need food, medical attention and rehousing," she said.

Four months ago, floods killed thousands of people in the border area between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

And in February, dozens were killed in a violent uprising which led to the flight of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

International peacekeepers were sent to restore stability to the country.

'Dead everywhere'

Argentine troops stationed in Gonaives as part of the UN mission stitched up the feet of dozens of people who had stepped on glass underneath the flood waters.

The hospital was empty and was being used as a morgue.

Most of Gonaives is submerged

The commander of the Argentine brigade, Lt Col Santiago Ferreyra, reported seeing 10 bodies floating in the flood waters.

"A lot of people are dead everywhere, it's just awful. It's not just Gonaives, it's the suburbs," he said.

The disaster came four months after floods killed more than 3,000 people in the border area between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

At its strongest, Jeanne killed at least eight people in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

In the Bahamas, the government on Sunday called off all warnings as Jeanne took a north-westerly turn out into the sea.

The storm followed in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, which killed more than 100 people and caused widespread damage in the Caribbean and the southern US states last week.