Matthew hammers western Haiti

LES CAYES, Haiti: The fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade ripped into Haiti´s southwestern peninsula early on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour winds and storm surges, killing at least one person and damaging homes.

The eye of the violent and slow-moving Category 4 storm was hovering over the western tip of Haiti, the US National Hurricane Center said, pounding coastal villages with strong gusts. One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the beach town of Port Salut, Haiti´s civil protection service said.

He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said.

One fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached, and another was missing. Overnight, Haitians living in vulnerable coastal shacks on the Tiburon Peninsula frantically sought shelter as Matthew closed in, bringing heavy rain and gusts and driving the ocean into seaside towns. Several districts in southern Haiti were flooded, with crops inundated with ocean and rain water. About 3 feet of rain is forecast to fall over hills that are largely deforested and so more prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shanty towns in the capital Port-au-Prince, where heavy rain fell overnight.