PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian civil defense authorities have officially confirmed that severe flooding triggered by three days of torrential rain in early April has claimed at least 12 lives across the country’s northwest department, leaving a trail of widespread destruction that has displaced thousands of residents and disrupted critical public services.
Preliminary assessments from the Departmental Directorate of Civil Protection show the extreme weather event, which unfolded between April 11 and 13, hit three local municipalities — Port-de-Paix, Saint-Louis du Nord, and Anse-à-Foleur — the hardest. The relentless downpour pushed multiple river systems over their banks, including the major Rivière des Trois Rivières, submerging entire communities and creating an urgent humanitarian emergency that officials warn could escalate if additional rainfall arrives.
Most of the fatalities were recorded in rural areas of Saint-Louis du Nord, where the 12 victims either died in rain-triggered landslides or were swept away by fast-moving floodwaters. Multiple people have also sustained serious injuries, and an unknown number of residents remain unaccounted for, including local fishermen and riverside inhabitants in Anse-à-Foleur.
Official data indicates more than 2,500 families have been directly impacted by the disaster. Hundreds of residents were forced to flee their inundated properties overnight, taking shelter with host relatives or in makeshift emergency camps set up by local volunteers. Preliminary damage surveys count roughly 1,200 flooded residential properties, while all three municipalities have seen local schools and health facilities swamped with muddy floodwater. The contamination and structural damage have rendered these essential service sites inaccessible, cutting off affected communities from basic education and medical care.
The disaster has also delivered a severe blow to local agricultural livelihoods: hundreds of head of livestock, a critical economic asset for small-scale family farmers across the region, have been washed away, resulting in catastrophic financial losses for already vulnerable households.
Local government leaders have already issued an urgent appeal to Haiti’s national central government for immediate life-saving support. Among the most urgently needed supplies are food rations, clean drinking water, personal hygiene kits, and sanitation infrastructure, which local authorities say are critical to heading off a secondary public health crisis in crowded displacement sites.