(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-31 09:52

HAVANA -- At least 38 people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Noel as it barreled across Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, in the Caribbean, officials said Tuesday.

A picture released by the European Space Agency (ESA) and taken by Envisat shows new tropical storm Noel moving westward across the Caribbean Sea October 30, 2007. At least 38 people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by Tropical Storm Noel as it barreled across Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, in the Caribbean. [Agencies]

After drenching Hispaniola, an island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Noel late Tuesday moved slowly across the Cuban interior.

It left at least 30 people dead and 15 reported missing in the Dominican Republic, and threatened to cause more floods and mudslides across the region, already drenched by weeks of rainfall.

The National Emergency Committee said nearly 20,000 people had to evacuate their homes across the country.

In Haiti, a reporter in the capital city Port-au-Prince witnessed four deaths, including a 14-year old girl and her mother who were killed when an uprooted tree crushed their house.

Authorities in the impoverished and vulnerable Caribbean nation reported another four deaths.

Heavy rain swept away and destroyed homes in three departments, said Marie Alta Jean Baptiste, head of the country's civil protection agency.

The storm caused authorities in the Dominican Republic and Haiti to shut down airports.

Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis said 1.5 million dollars had been set aside to assist storm victims.

Dominican President Leonel Fernandez convened an emergency cabinet meeting and announced a thre million dollar relief package for storm victims.

In Cuba, 2,000 people in the storm's path were evacuated.

Tropical Storm Noel was expected to head back out to sea off the north coast of Cuba Tuesday night or Wednesday.

It was then expected to barrel over some of the Bahamian islands before heading north into the Atlantic Ocean, though forecasters said Noel's likely track would take it dangerously close to Florida's east coast.

At 2100 GMT, the center of the storm was 45 kilometers (30 miles) south-southwest of Camaguey, Cuba. Noel packed maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers (40 miles) per hour.

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