Tropical storm Alpha's death toll at 11 in Haiti

Port-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - At least 11 people were killed in Haiti when record-breaking Tropical Storm Alpha brought torrential rain to the impoverished Caribbean country, officials and witnesses said.

The director of Haiti's Civil Protection Office, Alta Jean-Baptiste, said 8 people were killed on Sunday across the country.

Another three people were carried away by floodwaters that suddenly roared through the dry bed of the Riviere Froide river in the neighborhood of Ka Louijeune, in the Carrefour district just outside of Port-au-Prince.

"The river was coming down with a lot force. I saw four people walking in the river bed. Two were carried away by the floods and the two others managed to escape," Carlo Francois, a resident of Ka Louijeune, told Reuters.

Other witnesses said a woman was also killed by the floods in Ka Janmo, a nearby community. The civil protection agency said it could only list the reported Carrefour victims as "missing" until their bodies had been found.

"The currents were so powerful that they carried away mules, cows ..., and washed out a significant number of houses," Francois said.

Farmers carrying goods to and from Carrefour use the river bed to avoid a steep climb over mountains. The government said 189 houses were destroyed in the flashfloods.

Alpha formed in the Caribbean Sea on Saturday as the 22nd named tropical cyclone of the Atlantic season, breaking the record set in 1933 and making 2005 the most active hurricane season since records began 150 years ago.

Forecasters said the storm dumped as much as 38cm of rain over some parts of Hispaniola, the island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

Haiti is particularly vulnerable to floods and mudslides because much of the impoverished country has been stripped of trees by dirt-poor farmers and slum dwellers whose main source of fuel is charcoal.

In September last year, Hurricane Jeanne killed up to 3,000 people in and around the port city of Gonaives while it was still a tropical storm. Another 3,000 people died in May last year when heavy rains caused flashfloods.

Alpha quickly weakened to a tropical depression over the mountains of Hispaniola and by 11am Monday local time, was located around 1010km southwest of Bermuda.

It was expected to merge with the remnants of Hurricane Wilma, which battered south Florida on Monday.

- REUTERS