JACKSONVILLE, Fla./PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hurricane Matthew's winds diminished on Saturday, Oct. 8, as it headed towards the Carolinas after killing almost 900 people in Haiti and causing major flooding and widespread power outages in the southeastern United States.

As winds dropped to less than 85 miles per hour, making it a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale of 1 to 5, the storm was about 20 miles (35 km) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was moving northeast at 12 miles per hour.

The number of deaths in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, jumped to at least 877 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of tolls from officials.

Matthew rampaged through Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mph winds and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm hurled the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.

At least three towns in the hills and coast of Haiti's fertile western tip reported dozens of people killed, including the farming village of Chantal whose mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.

"A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn’t get out," said 27-year-old driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald.

"People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot," said Jean-Donald, who had been married for only a year. His young daughter stood by his side, crying "Mommy."

With cellphone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.

The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was en route to Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh-water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.

The NHC predicted the storm would possibly be striking the U.S. coast on Saturday morning or afternoon.

"Regardless of whether or not the center makes landfall, hurricane-force winds in the northern eyewall will lash much of the coast of South Carolina," an NHC advisory said.

Matthew sideswiped Florida's coast with winds of up to 120 mph but did not make landfall there.

There were at least four storm-related deaths in Florida but no immediate reports of significant damage in cities and towns where Matthew swamped streets, toppled trees and knocked out power to about 1 million households and businesses.

Governors in several states were expected to give news conferences on Saturday morning.

About 450,000 were without power in Georgia and South Carolina on Saturday, utility companies said.

In Florida, two people were killed by falling trees and an elderly couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator while sheltering from the storm.

Hurricane and flash flood warnings extended through Georgia and South Carolina and into North Carolina early on Saturday.

Forecasters warned of flooding as 15 inches of rain were expected to fall in parts of the region along with massive storm surges and high tides.

Several major roadways were inundated in Charleston, South Carolina, local media reported.

Standing water closed both directions of Interstate 95 highway in Georgia. Some 8 inches of rain had fallen in the Savannah, Georgia area where Matthew downed trees and caused flooding.

Though gradually weakening, Matthew - which triggered mass evacuations along the U.S. coast - was forecast to remain a hurricane until it begins moving away from the U.S. Southeast coast on Sunday, according to the NHC.

President Barack Obama and officials urged people to heed safety instructions. Coastal residents were warned that storm surges could still flood neighborhoods even as Matthew departs the region. </s> PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti/DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - Hurricane Matthew killed almost 900 people and left tens of thousands homeless in Haiti earlier this week before it skirted Florida’s Atlantic coast on Friday and plowed northward over waters just off Georgia.

The number of deaths in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, surged to at least 877 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of death tolls given by officials.

Matthew triggered mass evacuations along the U.S. coast from Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina and North Carolina.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged people not to be complacent and to heed safety instructions.

“The potential for storm surge, loss of life and severe property damage exists,” Obama told reporters after a briefing with emergency management officials about the fiercest cyclone to affect the United States since Superstorm Sandy four years ago.

Matthew smashed through Haiti’s western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 kph) winds and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.

While highlighting the misery of underdevelopment in Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake, the storm looked certain to rekindle the debate about global warming and the long-term threat posed by rising sea levels to low-lying cities and towns.

At least three towns in the hills and coast of Haiti’s fertile western tip reported dozens of people killed, including the farming village of Chantal where the mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.

“A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn’t get out,” said driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald, 27, who had been married for only a year.

“People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot,” Jean-Donald said, his young daughter by his side, crying “Mommy.”

With cellphone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas in Haiti. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.

The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was heading for Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.

FOUR KILLED IN FLORIDA

Matthew sideswiped Florida’s coast with winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph) but did not make landfall in the state. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded the storm to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity as its sustained winds dropped to 110 mph. Category 5 is the strongest.

There were at least four storm-related deaths in Florida but no immediate reports of significant damage in cities and towns where the storm swamped streets, toppled trees and knocked out power to more than 1 million people.

Two people were killed by falling trees, according to Florida officials, and an elderly couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator while sheltering from the storm inside a garage.

Pictures are seen on the floor of a destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew passes Jeremie, Haiti, October 7, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Hurricane warnings late on Friday extended up the Atlantic coast from northeast Florida through Georgia and South Carolina and into North Carolina.

In Daytona Beach, the street under the city’s famed “World’s Most Famous Beach” sign was clogged with debris washed up by the ocean. The waves had receded by early afternoon but there was damage throughout the city, including a facade ripped off the front of a seaside hotel.

Robert Walker, a 51-year-old mechanic, weathered the worst of the storm in his seaside Daytona Beach apartment where high-powered winds peeled back the roof.

“It sounded like a jet plane coming over. I was scared,” said Walker as he stood in front of the battered remains of the two-story building..

At 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT Saturday), Matthew’s eye was about 115 miles (185 km) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, and moving northward at 12 mph (19 kph), the NHC said.

After passing near or over the coast of Georgia it was on a track that would put it near or over South Carolina on Saturday. Though gradually weakening, it was forecast to remain a hurricane until it begins moving away from the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, the NHC said.

RELUCTANT TO LEAVE

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he was concerned that relatively light damage so far could give people up the coast a false sense of security.

“People should not be looking at the damages they’re seeing and saying this storm is not that bad,” Fugate told NBC.

Slideshow (25 Images)

“The real danger still is storm surge, particularly in northern Florida and southern Georgia. These are very vulnerable areas. They’ve never seen this kind of damage potential since the late 1800s,” Fugate said.

In St. Augustine just south of Jacksonville, Florida, about half of the 14,000 residents refused to heed evacuation orders despite warnings of an 8-foot (2.4-meter) storm surge that could sink entire neighborhoods, Mayor Nancy Shaver said in a telephone interview from the area’s emergency operations center.

Television images later showed water surging through streets in the historic downtown area of St. Augustine, the oldest U.S. city and a major tourist attraction.

“There’s that whole inability to suspend disbelief that I think really affects people in a time like this,” Shaver said. </s> A flyover of Haiti by the U.S. Coast Guard shows the devastation left in Matthew's path.

Overnight, the death toll rose to at least 140 people killed by the storm, and officials say many more are still missing.

The brunt of the storm hit the southwestern Tiburon Peninsula, where most of the fatalities were reported.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is considered highly vulnerable to natural disasters.

Food and wanter is scarce, and hospitals are short on resources.

Health officials fear there may be an upsurge in cholera from water contamination after Matthew.

With the country's long-delayed presidential election postponed because of the hurricane, the road to building back may have only just begun. </s> The number of deaths in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, surged to at least 842 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of death tolls given by officials.

Matthew triggered mass evacuations along the U.S. coast from Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina and North Carolina.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged people not to be complacent and to heed safety instructions.

"The potential for storm surge, loss of life and severe property damage exists," Obama told reporters, after a briefing with emergency management officials about the fiercest cyclone to affect the United States since Superstorm Sandy four years ago.

Matthew smashed through Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (233 km-per-hour) winds and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.

While highlighting the misery of underdevelopment in Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake, the storm looked certain to rekindle the debate about global warming and the long-term threat posed to low-lying cities and towns by rising sea levels.

At least three towns in the hills and coast of Haiti's fertile western tip reported dozens of people killed, including the farming village of Chantal where the mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.

"A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn't get out," said driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald, 27, who had been married for only a year.

"People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot," Jean-Donald said, his young daughter by his side, crying "Mommy."

With cellphone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas in Haiti. Food was scarce, and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.

The Mesa Verde, a U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was heading for Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.

AT LEAST ONE DEAD IN FLORIDA

Matthew sideswiped Florida's coast with winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph) but did not make landfall in the state. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded the storm to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity as its sustained winds dropped to 110 mph. Category 5 is the strongest.

There were no immediate reports of significant damage in Florida cities and towns where the storm swamped streets and toppled trees and knocked out power to more than 1 million people. But CNN reported at least four storm-related deaths.

One person was killed by a falling tree in Volusia County after venturing outside to feed animals during a lull in the storm, said James Dinneen, manager of the county that includes Daytona Beach.

Hurricane warnings late on Friday extended up the Atlantic coast from northeast Florida through Georgia and South Carolina and into North Carolina.

In Daytona Beach, the street under the city's famed "World's Most Famous Beach" sign was clogged with debris washed up by the ocean. The waves had receded by early afternoon, but there was damage throughout the city, including a facade ripped off the front of a seaside hotel.

Robert Walker, a 51-year-old mechanic, weathered the worst of the storm in his seaside Daytona Beach apartment where high-powered winds peeled back the roof.

"It sounded like a jet plane coming over. I was scared," said Walker, as he stood in front of the battered remains of the two-story building..

At 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT Saturday) Matthew's eye or center was moving northward just off the coasts of Georgia and northeast Florida, the NHC said.

After passing near or over the coast of Georgia it was on a track that would put it near or over South Carolina on Saturday. Though gradually weakening, it was forecast to remain a hurricane until it begins moving away from the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, the NHC said.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he was concerned that relatively light damage so far could give people up the coast a false sense of security.

"People should not be looking at the damages they're seeing and saying this storm is not that bad," Fugate told NBC.

"The real danger still is storm surge, particularly in northern Florida and southern Georgia. These are very vulnerable areas. They've never seen this kind of damage potential since the late 1800s," Fugate said.

In St. Augustine just south of Jacksonville, Florida, about half of the 14,000 residents refused to heed evacuation orders despite warnings of an 8-foot (2.4-meter) storm surge that could sink entire neighborhoods, Mayor Nancy Shaver said in a telephone interview from the area's emergency operations center.

Television images later showed water surging through streets in the historic downtown area of St. Augustine, the oldest U.S. city and a major tourist attraction.

"There's that whole inability to suspend disbelief that I think really affects people in a time like this," Shaver said. </s> Hurricane Matthew: Haiti death toll hits 1,000 as victims are buried in mass graves

Posted

As the death toll from Hurricane Matthew in Haiti rises to 1,000 and cholera spreads in the devastated south-west, the nation has started to bury its dead in mass graves, an official says.

The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday (local time), bringing 233 kilometre-per-hour winds and torrential rains.

Numbers from local officials showed 1,000 people were killed by the storm in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

The official death toll from the central civil protection agency is 336, a slower count because officials must visit each village to confirm the numbers.

Authorities had to start burying the dead in mass graves in Jeremie as the bodies were starting to decompose, said Kedner Frenel, the most senior central government official in the Grand'Anse region on Haiti's western peninsula.

Mr Frenel said 522 people died in Grand'Anse alone.

A tally of death reported by mayors from 15 of 18 municipalities in Sud Department on the south side of the peninsula showed 386 people there.

In the rest of the country, 92 people died, the same tally showed.

Mr Frenel said there was great concern about the cholera spreading, and that authorities were focused on getting water, food and medication to the thousands of people living in shelters.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country over the weekend to repair treatment centres and reach the epicentre of one outbreak.

Survivors persevere

Despite the loss, survivors packed what remained of the city's churches on Sunday, many seated in pews under open sky because Matthew ripped away roofs and even walls of the sanctuaries.

At least one was so badly damaged that worshippers set up an altar and prayed outside.

Jameson Pierre, 22, saw at least one bright side of the devastation.

"There will be lots and lots of jobs since so many homes were knocked down. I've been working for the last three days straight," he said.

The first three of five cargo planes of humanitarian aid from the United States have arrived at the airport in the capital Port of Prince.

They were carrying 480 metric tons of relief supplies, including 20,000 hygiene kits, 18,000 sets of kitchen utensils for cooking, 40,000 blankets and 500 rolls of plastic sheeting.

AP/Reuters

Topics: storm-disaster, poverty, weather, cyclone, disasters-and-accidents, cyclones, haiti </s> LES CAYES, Haiti — Two days after Hurricane Matthew rampaged across Haiti's remote southwestern peninsula, authorities and aid workers still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years.

But as the weather began calming, convoys and helicopters have begun venturing to marooned corners of the country to assess the damage and determine how to help thousands of people who lost homes, livestock and crops.

At least 16 deaths in the Caribbean have been blamed on the storm. The death toll in Haiti alone was raised to 10 by the country's civil protection agency Wednesday evening, but the number was expected to rise.

In southern peninsula towns where Matthew arrived around daybreak Tuesday with 145 mph (235 kph) winds, there was wreckage and misery everywhere.

"The floodwater took all the food we have in the house. Now we are starving and don't have anything to cook," said farmer Antoine Louis as he stood in brown water up to his thighs in the doorway of his deluged concrete shack.

In Aquin, a coastal town outside the battered city of Les Cayes, people trudged through mud around the wreckage of clapboard houses and tiny shops.

Cenita Leconte was one of many who initially ignored calls to evacuate vulnerable shacks before Matthew roared ashore. The 75-year-old was thankful she finally complied and made it through the terrifying ordeal with her life.

"We've lost everything we own. But it would have been our fault if we stayed here and died," she told The Associated Press as neighbors poked through wreckage hoping to find at least some of their meager possessions.

Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, head of the civil protection agency, said the storm also made roads impassable and knocked out communications in the Grand Anse department, on the opposite side of the narrow peninsula from where Matthew first hit.

"We do know there's a lot of damage in the Grand Anse, and we also know human life has been lost there," Jean-Baptiste said, though the official death toll did not yet include reports from there.

Civil aviation authorities reported counting 3,214 destroyed homes along the southern peninsula, where many families live in shacks with sheet metal roofs and don't always have the resources to escape harm's way.

The government has estimated at least 350,000 people need some kind of assistance after the disaster, which U.N. Deputy Special Representative for Haiti Mourad Wahba has called the country's worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating earthquake of 2010.

International aid groups are already appealing for donations for a lengthy recovery effort in Haiti, the hemisphere's least developed and most aid-dependent nation.

In coming days, U.S. military personnel equipped with nine helicopters were expected to start arriving in the capital to help deliver food and water to hard-hit areas.

Jean-Michel Vigreux, the country director in Haiti for the nonprofit group CARE, his group hadn't yet been able to communicate with its team in Grande Anse. "It is very scary," he said.

With answers slow to come, some Haitians in the crowded capital were convinced their homeland had been largely spared the kind of suffering that severe weather has wrought in the past.

"The news on the radio doesn't seem nearly as bad as it could have been," upholsterer Daniel Wesley said as he walked down a rain-slicked street in downtown Port-au-Prince which was largely spared from the storm.

The last Category 4 storm to pound Haiti was Hurricane Flora in 1963, which killed as many as 8,000 people.

In nearby Cuba, Matthew blew across that island's sparsely populated eastern tip, destroying dozens of homes and damaging hundreds in the island's easternmost city, Baracoa. But the government oversaw the evacuation of nearly 380,000 people and strong measures were taken to protect communities and infrastructure, U.N. officials said.

Early Thursday, Matthew was pounding the central the Bahamas on a path forecast to take it close to the U.S. East Coast, where authorities were carrying out large-scale evacuations. Forecasters said Matthew, which had dropped slightly to a dangerous Category 3 storm after crossing land in Haiti and eastern Cuba, was expected to strengthen anew in the coming day. </s> Hurricane Matthew has left at least 23 people dead in Haiti, a toll likely to climb as authorities re-establish contact with the hardest-hit areas where the damage is "catastrophic," officials said.

The Caribbean's worst storm in nearly a decade, Matthew slammed into Haiti, the Americas' poorest nation, with heavy rains and devastating winds, triggering severe flooding and mud slides.

"The situation in the main cities we flew over was catastrophic," Haiti's interim president Jocelerme Privert said, after he surveyed damage to the country's south on Wednesday in a US Coast Guard plane.

"Jeremie, Les Cayes, Port-Salut, Petite-Riviere de Nippes, Dame Marie, among others, require all intervention without delay," he said, according to a Wednesday statement.

In addition to the 23 killed, three people remain missing, civil protection spokesman Edgar Celestin said, warning that the toll did not include the department of Grande Anse, which was in the eye of the storm and has been cut off from communication.

Authorities were "briefly able to contact Jeremie (the department capital), but we don't have information from other communities," Celestin said.

"We're making every effort to care for these people. The priority is drinking water and food," Celestin said.

Matthew's overall death toll now stands at 27, including four people killed in the Dominican Republic.

Interior ministry spokesman Guillaume Albert Moleon told AFP that officials "can already see the situation seems very concerning," adding that 25 injuries had been reported.

Flooding brought on by Matthew has sparked a resurgence of cholera, with eight cases already reported.

Torrential rains have left around 2,000 homes flooded and damaged 10 schools, according to the latest partial assessment by authorities.

Both the death and damage tolls are likely to rise as rescue teams reach communities that have been cut off for the last 24 hours.

Emergency services have been hampered by the collapse of a bridge, which closed off access to the only road linking Port-au-Prince to the peninsula that makes up southern Haiti. </s> "The death toll is rising on an hourly basis as aid workers and authorities get into these really hard-hit regions where not only communication and power were knocked out, but the roads were knocked out, so there has really been no way in," CNN International Correspondent Shasta Darlington reported from Port-au-Prince on Saturday morning.

"Four people are missing, 211 are injured and more than 60,000 people are now displaced from the killer storm," he said.

"We do not know the exact number; we cannot find all the people," Haitian senator Herve Fourcand, told CNN on Saturday.

Other media outlets report much higher deaths. A count by Reuters, based on information from local civil protection officials, put the death toll well over 800. "It's only now that we're beginning to really understand the extent of the devastation," Darlington said. An aerial view shows destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew in Jeremie, Haiti, on Friday, October 7. The damage from Hurricane Matthew was especially brutal in southern Haiti, where sustained winds of 130 mph punished the country. Haitians gather along a flooded street in Haiti on Friday, October 7. Palm trees lie flattened on the ground after high winds knocked them over. Rubble lies in the street in the aftermath of the storm. The wall of a church stands among the debris scattered in Hurricane Matthew's wake. Residents work to repair a roof after it was ripped away by Hurricane Matthew in Jeremie, Haiti, on Friday, October 7. Damaged homes are shown on Friday, October 7, in Haiti, where the death toll is in the hundreds. A young man stands near the cathedral damaged by Hurricane Matthew, in Jeremie, Haiti, on October 7. A girl washes mud from her feet after Hurricane Matthew passed through Les Cayes, Haiti, on Thursday, October 6. Fallen trees litter the ground outside a damaged church in Les Cayes on October 6. Hundreds of people have been killed in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said, with the death toll expected to rise. Girls wade through a flooded street in Les Cayes on October 6. Two days after the storm, authorities and aid workers in Haiti still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years. Saint Anne Church in Les Cayes is reduced to ruins. In the wake of the storm, the Electoral Commission postponed the country's presidential election, which had been scheduled for Sunday. Men push a motorbike through a flooded street in Leogane on October 5. More than 300,000 people are in shelters across the country, the United Nations said.

 A man carries a woman across a river at Petit Goave on October 5. A bridge collapsed because of the storm. A woman cleans her flooded home following the overflowing of La Rouyonne River on October 5 in Leogane. Residents could face risks from standing water. Haiti is still recovering from a cholera outbreak after the devastating 2010 earthquake. Nice Simon, the mayor of Tabarre, holds a baby on October 3, as she helps evacuate the area along a river. Matthew struck the southwestern peninsula with winds of 125 mph (200 kph) and heavy rains that flattened homes, flooded villages, razed crops, swept away cattle and cut off the parts of the island. The U.S. State Department warned citizen travelers of "serious problems concerning emergency response/medical care infrastructure and crime in Haiti," in a statement released Friday. Worse still, there are warnings the aftermath could worsen the nation's cholera epidemic , which killed at least 10,000 people after the 2010 earthquake. "Cholera is the biggest problem right now," Fourcand said. "We need clean water. The water here is so dirty." An estimated 500,000 children live in the areas in the southern region most affected by Hurricane Matthew, UNICEF said in a statement. Agency representative Marc Vincent, who is in Haiti, said they are "still far from having a full picture of the extent of the damage" and "are hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst." UN officials said the hurricane is the country's worst humanitarian crisis since the devastating 2010 earthquake. "The focus right now is getting aid to these people who were affected. So they have to get in clean water, they have to get in food and shelter," Darlington said. </s> Residents of the southeastern United States ravaged by Hurricane Matthew turned their focus on Monday toward recovery and clean-up, while Haiti started to bury some of its dead.

Officials in several US states warned that deadly flooding could continue as rain swollen rivers crest in coming days.

Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Sunday after its rampage through the Caribbean killed 1,000 people in Haiti. In the United States, the death toll rose to at least 19 people.

While power was being restored in some areas, 1.6 million people were without power in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Virginia, down Sunday’s peak of 2.2 million. Officials were working to clear streets of downed trees and abandoned vehicles.

With five people reported missing and rivers rising, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said he expected the death toll to rise. Eight people in the state were known to have died so far.

McCrory said several swelling rivers were expected to hit record levels and would not crest for days.

“Hurricane Matthew is off the map, but it is still with us and it is still deadly,” he said.

The National Weather Service said “life-threatening flooding,” will continue Monday over eastern portions of the state.

Many coastal and inland communities remained under water, either from coastal storm surge or overrun rivers and creeks.

All 2,000 residents of Princeville, the oldest town in the United States incorporated by African Americans, were told on Sunday to evacuate due to flash flood risks. The town lies on the Tar River about 40 km (25 miles) north of Greenville.

Several dams have breached in the area around Cumberland County, south of Raleigh, Michael Martin, fire marshal for the city of Fayetteville, said by phone.

Swiftwater rescue teams are still on alert and there have been 255 water rescue calls and 701 people rescued.

In neighbouring South Carolina, a vehicle trying to cross a flooded roadway in Florence County was swept away by flood waters, killing one person, Governor Nikki Haley said.

Jake Williams, a resident of Florence, said on early Monday that his power had been out since Saturday morning.

“Trees are down in every neighbourhood on almost every road,” he said, adding “I am no weather man, but would guess that the gusts of wind were near 100 mph (160 km), and with soggy ground a lot trees couldn’t stand up to it.”

In Virginia Beach, the city said it had received over 33 cm (13 inches) of rain and 55,000 people remained without power on Sunday night. The city said that some 200 vehicles were abandoned and many roads remained impassable.

Norfolk, which declared a state of emergency, said efforts were under way to clear streets of debris and abandoned vehicles with city offices, libraries and recreational centres set to re-open Monday.

Haiti started burying some of its dead in mass graves in the wake of Hurricane

Matthew, a government official said on Sunday, as cholera spread in the devastated southwest and the death toll from the storm rose to 1,000 people.

Authorities had to start burying the dead in mass graves in Jeremie because the bodies were starting to decompose, said Kedner Frenel, the most senior central government official in the Grand’Anse region on Haiti’s western peninsula.

Frenel said there was great concern about cholera spreading, and that authorities were focused on getting water, food and medication to the thousands of people living in shelters. Cholera causes severe diarrhoea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

The storm centre was about 320 km (200 miles) off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and heading away from land, according to the National Hurricane Center’s Sunday 9pm Irish time (5pm local time) report.

The storm still packed hurricane force winds as far as 150km (90 miles) from the centre and tropical-storm-force winds 390km (240 miles) away.

US president Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Georgia and Florida, freeing up federal money to help the states repair damaged infrastructure and remove debris.

Mr McCrory said 334 rescue workers risked their lives carrying out 877 rescues overnight.
Hurricane Matthew hits the southeastern United States as the death toll in Haiti rises to at least 877.