Menacing Hurricane Matthew Intensifies Close to Haiti

Hurricane Matthew intensified en route to Haiti on Monday, bringing 140-mile-per-hour (220 kph) winds and torrential rain that could wreak havoc in Caribbean nations that had yet to evacuate residents of risky coastal homes.

The center of Matthew, a violent Category 4 storm, is expected to close in on southwestern Haiti on Monday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has veered from Jamaica but the slow-moving cyclone is still forecast to bring gale-force winds and dump hazardous amounts of rain on the island.

Crawling north at just 6 miles per hour (9 kph), the storm threatens to linger enough for its winds and rain to cause great damage, especially over Haiti where deforestation exacerbates flooding and mudslides.

A combination of weak government and precarious living conditions make the country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 200,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in 2010.

"We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew," said Ronald Semelfort, director of Haiti's national meteorology center.

"Even in normal times, when we have rain we have flooding that sometimes kills people," said Semelfort, comparing Matthew to 1963's Hurricane Flora, which swept away entire villages and killed thousands in Haiti.

Matthew was about 205 miles (330 km) southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, at 11 a.m. EDT Monday (1500 GMT), the NHC said. It is expected to bring between 15 and 40 inches (38 to 101 cm) of rain to parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, setting off potentially fatal flash floods and landslides, the NHC said.

The storm comes at a bad time for Haiti. The poorest country in the Americas is set to hold a long-delayed presidential election next Sunday.

On Monday, Frederic Hislain, mayor of the country's largest slum, the oceanside Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, called on the government to evacuate 150,000 people whose homes he said were threatened.

In Jamaica, dawn broke on Monday to reveal partially blue skies and only a slight breeze, making it harder for officials to convince some of the vulnerable to evacuate.

Nonetheless, many residents had already boarded up windows and flocked to supermarkets to stock up on food, water, flashlights and beer. In both Jamaica and Haiti, authorities shut the main airports to wait for the storm to pass.

Source: Reuters