Torrential Caribbean rainstorms have killed 80 people in the Dominican Republic and 58 in neighboring Haiti, authorities said Monday, and hundreds more are homeless.Dominican hospital officials said at least 76 people died in Jimani, a town bordering Haiti, 280 kilometers (174 miles) west of Santo Domingo, after a river overflowed after days of rain that has hit the island of Hispaniola, which the two countries share.
"The Solie river, whose source is in Haiti, overflowed," Dominican National Emergency Commission commissioner Radhames Lora Salcedo said.
"The river wiped out the town between 1:00 and 3:00 in the morning."
Salcedo said the death toll was preliminary.
In the capital, one person drowned and another was electrocuted, as the rains toppled electrical lines, cutting power to large parts of the population.
A Haitian man drowned in Duarte province of the Dominican Republic, 135 kilometers (84 miles) northwest of the capital, the commission said. Two people were reported missing.
In Haiti, 58 people were killed in Fonds Verette, northeast of Port-au-Prince, a parish priest told Radio Metropole. The toll could not be independently verified.
The downpour has caused landslides and has isolated communities.
Forecasters say the rain will continue for two more days.
"Right now there is moderate to strong precipitation, occasionally accompanied by wind gusts over a large part of the national territory," Dominican National Emergency Commission spokesman Jose Luis German said.
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