Hurricane Tomas gave battered Haiti a glancing blow Friday, with flooding and wind damage less severe than officials had predicted, authorities said.
At least four people were killed by the storm, The Miami Herald reported. But the death toll was smaller than in the Eastern Caribbean.
"So far, we seem to have escaped the worst,'' said Nigel Fisher, the head of humanitarian coordination for the United Nations. "We've been fortunate it will not be the catastrophic damage we had predicted for Port-au-Prince."
About a million people are living in tent encampments after losing their homes in the January earthquake, and officials feared the hurricane would wreak more havoc.
President Rene Preval in a radio message urged Haitians to be careful until the storm passes completely away from the country.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said that at 11 p.m. EDT Friday, Tomas was still producing heavy rain in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The center of Tomas was 35 miles southeast of Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas and 155 miles west-northwest of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and moving northeast at 13 mph. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending 25 miles from the center.
Tomas is expected to diminish to a tropical storm late Saturday.
UPI
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