Hurricane Matthew toll now 283 in Haiti; Barack Obama declares federal state of emergency in Florida

Haitian Interior Ministry official on Friday said that the death toll of the devastating Hurricane Mathew has reached 283 in hard-hit southwest.

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama declared a federal state of emergency in Florida as Hurricane Matthew’s powerful winds began to be felt along the state’s southeast coast.

He ordered federal aid to supplement state and local efforts to deal with the devastating storm, authorizing the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Till Thursday night, the hurricane had claimed at least 108 lives in Haiti, Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph informed, two days after the monster storm ripped through the poorest country in the Americas.

The hurricane left 50 dead in the single town of Roche-a-Bateau, on Haiti’s south coast, which local deputy Ostin Pierre-Louis said was “devastated”. The provisional death toll from the storm previously stood at 23 in Haiti.  (With Inputs from PTI)

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