Hurricane Matthew’s trail of destruction in Haiti stunned those viewing the aftermath on Friday, with the number of dead soaring to 842, tens of thousands made homeless and crops destroyed in the impoverished Caribbean nation’s breadbasket region.
Information trickled in from remote areas that were cut off by the storm, and it became clear that at least 175 people died in villages clustered among the hills and coast of Haiti’s fertile western tip.
Matthew pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which are only now being contacted.
Haiti’s central civil protection agency, which takes longer to collate numbers because it needs to visually confirm victims itself, said 271 people died as Matthew smashed through the western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rain.
Some 61,500 people were in shelters, the agency said.
