Tropical Storm Olga left at least 22 people dead in the Dominican Republic and one dead in Haiti after drenching the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and moving west toward Cuba, according to DPA. Dominican authorities said Thursday that 34,480 people had to be evacuated and 7,594 homes suffered damage. The toll could rise. Dominican Republic authorities said many people remained missing after the storm hit Wednesday. The heavy rain and the discharge of water from a dam caused the Yaque River to overflow its banks and flood the city of Santiago, according to media reports. However, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez blamed the disaster on global warming and rejected reports that the discharge of the Tavera dam had to do with the flooding. Late Wednesday, he promised the victims swift assistance. Many people were reported missing around Santiago, located about 250 kilometres north of the capital, Santo Domingo. Seventeen of the dead in the Dominican Republic were killed in the area, and many of its residents were cut off from the rest of the country and climbed trees and their roofs to escape the floodwaters. The latest disaster, which President Fernandez said had hit agriculture particularly hard, came on the heels of Hurricane Noel, which caused more than 100 deaths in the Caribbean in October. Flooding and landslides were also reported in Haiti. Olga developed in the centre of the Caribbean, two weeks after the end of hurricane season. It has caused heavy rain on Hispaniola. Such weather often provokes dangerous flooding and landslides on the island the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti. Cuba was also on alert as the storm approached. But by Wednesday night, it had weakened into a tropical depression with maximum sustained wind of 30 kilometres per hour, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida, said.
