AlHijjah 15, 1433, Oct 31, 2012, SPA -- The director of Haiti's civil-protection agency said Wednesday the death toll from Hurricane Sandy is now 54, meaning the toll for the Caribbean region is 71. Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste said the government has been able to revise the toll as rivers recede and officials are able to travel through the storm-drenched southern peninsula. The toll had been 52. Jean-Baptiste said one of the new deaths occurred during a mudslide and the other was a person who drowned trying to cross a river. There are still 21 people unaccounted for following the storm. Sandy drenched the impoverished country's south with more than 50 centimeters of rain in 24 hours. President Michel Martelly has declared a month-long state of emergency. The storm also caused death and destruction in Jamaica, eastern Cuba, and the Bahamas before it smashed the coast of New Jersey, flooding parts of that U.S. state and New York City. It then combined with a winter storm to drop up to a meter of snow in some U.S. states before heading north towards Canada.
