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GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) - Blood swirled in knee-deep floodwaters as workers stacked bodies outside the hospital morgue Tuesday. Carcasses of pigs, goats and dogs and pieces of smashed furniture floated in muddy streams that once were the streets of this battered city. Desperate people swarmed a truck delivering water.
The death toll across Haiti from the weekend deluges brought by Tropical Storm Jeanne rose to 691, with 600 of them in Gonaives, and officials said they expected to find more dead and estimated tens of thousands of people were homeless.
Waterlines up to 10 feet high on Gonaives' buildings marked the worst of the storm that sent water gushing down denuded hills, destroying homes and crops in the Artibonite region that is Haiti's breadbasket.
Floodwaters receded, but half of Haiti's third-largest city was still swamped with contaminated water up to two feet deep four days after Jeanne passed. Not a house in the city of 250,000 people escaped damage. The homeless sloshed through the streets carrying belongings on their heads, while people with houses that still had roofs tried to dry scavenged clothes.
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Flies buzzed around bloated corpses piled high at the city's three morgues, where the electricity was off as temperatures reached into the 90s.
Only about 30 of the 250 bodies at the morgue of the flood-damaged General Hospital hade been identified, said Dr. Daniel Rubens of the International Red Cross. Many of the dead there were children.
"I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do," said Jean Estimable, whose 2-year-old daughter was killed and another of his five children was missing and presumed dead.
Dieufort Deslorges, spokesman for the civil protection agency, said he expected the death toll to rise as reports came in from outlying villages and estimated a quarter million Haitians had been made homeless.
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"It's really catastrophic. We're still discovering bodies," said Francoise Gruloos of the U.N. Children's Fund.
Brazilian and Jordanian troops in the U.N. peacekeeping mission sent to stabilize Haiti after rebels ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February struggled to help the needy as aid workers ferried supplies of water and food to victims.
CARE spokesman Rick Perera said the agency had about 660 tons of dry food in Gonaives, including corn-soy blend, dried lentils and cooking oil and was trying to set up distribution points.
Police said aid vehicles were being waylaid by mobs on the outskirts of Gonaives. One truck that made it to City Hall in the town center was swarmed by people who began throwing its load of bagged water into the crowd, setting off a melee. The driver finally sped off, bouncing people off the truck.
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"In the face of this tragedy ... I appeal urgently for the solidarity of the international community so it may once again support the government in the framework of emergency assistance," he said.
The European Union sent $1.8 million in urgent aid, to be distributed by the Red Cross and other aid agencies, according to EU Development Commissioner Poul Nielson.
Venezuela's government is sending $1 million as well as a boat loaded with food, water, tents and a rescue squad, Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra said.
On Monday, the U.S. Embassy announced $60,000 in immediate relief aid, an amount criticized as "a drop in the bucket" by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., whose district includes some of the Miami area's Haitian community.
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Floods are particularly devastating in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, because it is almost completely deforested, leaving few roots to hold back rushing waters or mudslides. Most of the trees have been chopped down to make charcoal for cooking.
Jeanne came four months after devastating floods along Haiti's southern border with the Dominican Republic. Some 1,700 bodies were recovered and 1,600 more were presumed dead.
Gonaives also suffered fighting during the February rebellion that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and left an estimated 300 dead.
All this in a year supposed to be dedicated to celebrating the 200th anniversary of the country's independence from France. Haiti, the only country to launch a successful rebellion against slavery, was the world's first black republic.
Two days after lashing Haiti, Jeanne regained hurricane strength over the Atlantic on Monday but posed no immediate threat to land. The storm entered the Caribbean last week, killing seven people in Puerto Rico before heading to the Dominican Republic, where it killed at least 19, including 12 who drowned Monday in swollen rivers. The overall death toll was 717.
Jeanne, with winds that reached hurricane strength Friday but weakened to 70 mph as it lashed the Dominican Republic and Haiti, was about 485 miles east of Great Abaco island in the Bahamas on Tuesday.
Hurricane Karl's 125 mph winds were no danger to land as the storm stayed out in the Atlantic Ocean about 1,005 miles east-northeast of the Leeward Islands. Tropical Storm Lisa, with winds of 60 mph, was about 1,055 miles west of the West African island of Cape Verde.
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On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
Weather Underground storm site: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical
