Flooding on Hispaniola

Credit: Credit: NASA/SRTM Team, Posted on: Saturday, 12 June 2004, 06:00 CDT Download full size image

The skies over Hispaniola opened up on May 24, 2004, and poured as much as 10 inches (25 cm) of rain within a 24-hour span onto an already rain-soaked island that had received as much as 10 inches of rain over the previous week. The torrent triggered flooding and mudslides that ran swiftly down the northern and southern flanks of the Massif de la Salle, straddling the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. As the deluge fanned out on the flood plains below, several villages were overrun by water, mud, and debris. Tragically, more than 2,000 people lost their lives. The maps above compare the topography of Hispaniola (top) with the island’s population density (bottom). Much of the town of Jimani, Dominican Republic, was overrun by gravel and debris swept off the Massif de la Salle by rapid rainwater runoff.

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