Temblor Follows Floods in Caribbean Region

A small earthquake rattled the southern border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday, but there were no reports of further deaths or destruction in an area where devastating floods and mudslides killed about 2,000 people last week.

The magnitude-4.4 quake was felt in the hard-hit Dominican border town of Jimani, the Dominican emergency operations center said. More than 350 people have been killed in the flooding there. The center did not report any damage.

The epicenter of the quake was on the Haitian side of the border at a depth of 20 miles, the Dominican center said. Quakes of magnitude 4 can cause moderate damage but are not considered severe.

Meanwhile, foreign military helicopters shuttled tons of food and drinking water to flood-devastated Haitian towns, providing a lifeline for thousands of homeless people.

With roads to the stricken areas impassable in many places, helicopters have been the only way to reach survivors of the worst natural disaster in years on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

As many as 1,000 of the dead were in the southeastern Haitian town of Mapou, which was engulfed by the floods, officials said. The town of several thousand people is only about 25 miles southeast of the capital, but roads were damaged by the torrents of mud and water that swept down deforested hillsides early last week.

“The helicopters are a very short-term fix for addressing immediate needs,” said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, spokesman for the U.S. military in Haiti, adding that road repairs would have to become a priority as the flooded areas start to recover.

A small boat to enable aid workers to get around Mapou, much of it still underwater, was sent on one of the 15 to 20 helicopter flights planned for Saturday, Lapan said.

A U.S.-led multinational force, sent to the impoverished country three months ago to help restore order after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted by a bloody revolt, is now carrying out relief work.

Tons of food, and medical supplies such as chlorine tablets to purify water, have been delivered to Mapou, and most of Saturday’s flights focused on delivering relief supplies to other hard-hit towns.