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PORT-AU-PRINCE: The death toll in Haiti from Tropical Storm Hanna has soared to 136, the head of the civil protection office said Thursday.
Officials had earlier given a toll of 61 dead after Hanna pounded northern Haiti Monday and Tuesday.
Gonaives, Haiti's third largest city, remains largely underwater.
In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne triggered flooding and landslides that killed 3,000 people in and around Gonaives.
The new toll, made public late Thursday by Alta Jean-Baptiste, head of Haiti's civil protection office, said that 102 of those who died were killed in northern Haiti, mostly in Gonaives.
Jean-Baptiste also said that flooding and landslides triggered by the heavy rain forced nearly 10,000 people into shelters. The figure does not count the thousands evacuated from Gonaives, population 300,000.
Haiti is preparing for the possible arrival of Hurricane Ike, which according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center is "an extremely dangerous Category Four storm on the (five-level) Saffir-Simpson scale."
On its current forecast path the outer bands of Ike would graze the northern island of Hispaniola - the Caribbean island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic - on Saturday on its way towards the Bahamas and eventually the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States.
The storm however could change, as long-term forecasts loose their accuracy after the third day, a Hurricane Center official said.
Ronald Semelfort, an official with Haiti's weather service, said that no public announcement has yet been made on Ike to prevent spreading panic.
- AFP/yb
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