High winds and heavy rain brought by tropical storm Noel in the Dominican Republic caused flooding and mudslides, killing at least 13 people while 13 others remained missing, civil protection officials said Tuesday, according to dpa. Earlier media reports had put the number of fatal casualties at 20. There were no immediate reports of dead in neighbouring Haiti, also on the island of Hispaniola, which has suffered equally heavy rains since Friday. Tourist areas in the Dominican Republic were largely spared the rain. Thousands of houses and huts were flooded since Monday, some 3,000 people were left homeless, and several bridges and roads were destroyed. Some villages were cut off from the outside world, and agriculture suffered severe damages in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. With sustained winds of 85 kilometres per hour, Noel lashed the Caribbean island of Hispaniola Monday, before moving on to eastern Cuba. The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) no longer expected it to hit the Bahamas, but rather to continue parallel to the East Coast of the United States. Heavy rain continued to fall on the eastern Bahamas Tuesday. Meteorologists admitted that it rained less there than on more mountainous Caribbean islands, although floods remained a possibility. The NHC said in its latest report, at 1500 GMT, that the storm continued to present sustained winds of up to 75 kilometres per hour, although it had weakened slightly over Cuba. People in Central America and the Caribbean often fear the rain associated with tropical storms more than the storms' destructive force. Mudslides and floods regularly claim lives in vulnerable areas. The hurricane season in the Caribbean officially ends November 30.
