Tropical storm Jeanne floods Dominican Republic

Tropical Storm Jeanne killed three people and flooded parts of the Dominican Republic as it doused the Caribbean country with torrential rains on a track that could take it towards the United States next week, authorities said yesterday.

Jeanne, which also killed two people and caused flooding in the US Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico earlier this week, has moved slowly over the north of the Dominican Republic since Thursday.

The town of Ramon Santana, east of the Dominican Republic capital, was cut off after a river burst its banks. Flooding also cut off several villages in the northeast and large areas of crops, especially rice, were under water.

The death toll rose to three when a man died in the town of Rio San Juan on the north coast, officials said, but did not give details. Two people, including a three-month-old crushed to death in a mudslide in Santo Domingo, were killed on Thursday.

Some 13,000 people were evacuated from their homes in low-lying parts of the country of nearly nine million people.

Jeanne, with top winds of 105 kph, was briefly at hurricane strength with winds of 120 kph on Thursday. It could strengthen again to a hurricane when it moves off the coast of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, forecasters said.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), the storm's centre was near the northern city of Santiago. It was moving west-northwest at 13 kph and was expected to take a course that would carry it over or near the southeastern Bahamas during the weekend, said the US National Hurricane Centre.

Residents on the north coast of Haiti, a poor nation of eight million, were also on alert for tropical storm conditions, although the course of the storm was likely to take its center out to sea rather than directly over the western end of Hispaniola where Haiti is located.

Haiti has been largely deforested and is vulnerable to deadly flash floods and mudslides. Flooding in May caused by torrential rains in central Hispaniola killed some 1,800 people in Haiti and 350 in the Dominican Republic.

The hurricane centre's longer term forecast, with a wide margin of error, had the storm looping up clear of the northern Bahamas and then veering west towards the US East Coast.

Jeanne could hit the northeast coast of Florida as a hurricane by next Wednesday. If it did, the state would suffer yet another hit after being slammed by Hurricane Charley on August 13, Hurricane Frances on September 4 and Hurricane Ivan on Thursday.