au-Prince, July 8, SPA -- At least five people died and nine were hurt when Hurricane Dennis swept through southern Haiti, officials said Friday. Dennis passed over Haiti on Thursday and was making its way toward Cuba and the southeastern United States. The storm, which had been upgraded Friday to a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 240 kilometres per hour, also destroyed several homes and damaged farming crops Thursday, Haitian civil protection officials said. Four people were killed in Grand-Goave, 50 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, when a bridge collapsed, said Civil Protection spokesman Dieufort Desloges. Another person died and several were injured when a palm tree uprooted by the storm's powerful winds crushed a home in Les Cayes, about 200 kilometres southwest of the Haitian capital, he added. --More 0046 Local Time 2146 GMT
