Above: Trinidad PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar is sending aid to the affected areas

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The death toll from a series of storms in the Eastern Caribbean has continued to rise, according to government officials.

The storms, which were focused in St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica, have caused at least more than a dozen deaths in the region, due to heavy flooding.

So far the have led to 13 deaths, as including eight in St Vincent and the Grenadines and at least five in St Lucia.

Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has requested that the country’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management mobilize foodstuff and emergency supplies to be sent to St Lucia, which were shipped on Thursday.

The Organization of American States is expressing “deep sorrow” over the loss of life and damage caused.

“This is very bad news, even more that it has occurred on Christmas Day,” OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said in a statement. “The unseasonable nature of the heavy rains and flooding raises once again the impact of climate change in the Caribbean region.”
St Lucia has remained in “response mode,” officials said Thursday, after a trough system that left 171.1 mm of rainfall in a 24-hour period that began on Dec. 24.

The storm caused water supply interruptions across St Lucia, although the country’s Water and Sewage Company said it expected to have the majority of its water supply operational by the weekend.

“Our prayers are with our Caribbean neighbours in St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica,” Jamaica Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said in a statement. “Please accept my best wishes and the support of the Government and people of Jamaica as you commence the daunting task of clean-up, rehabilitation and reconstruction.”