kingstown, st. vincent (ap)
MUDSLIDES KILLED TWO fishermen and destroyed three homes as heavy rains brought by a tropical depression overflowed river banks and made roads impassable in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, emergency officials said Tuesday.
Torrents of rain also swept away two bridges in Trinidad.
The poorly-organised depression was moving south of Puerto Rico and was expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Gamma on Wednesday or Thursday, said Richard Knabb, a meteorologist with the U.S.Hurricane Center in Miami.
It would be the 24th named storm of an already record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. The previous record of 21 named storms had stood since 1933.
On the Grenadine island of Bequia on Monday, a mudslide buried two men in a party of 10 camping on a fishing trip near Rocky Bay, emergency management coordinator Howie Prince said.
The victims' friends tried to dig them out but were overtaken by a second landslide and fled. Emergency workers recovered the bodies of Randolph Matthews, 27, and Alwyn Williams, 32, early Tuesday, Prince said. The men were from the fishing village of Questelles, on the main island of St. Vincent.
Near the capital, Kingstown, landslides destroyed three houses and rivers burst their banks, making several roads impassable, Prince said.
The airport in St. Vincent was closed because of heavy rain and flooding in the terminal and debris on the runway.
In Trinidad, Monday's heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides that washed away at least two bridges outside of the capital, Port-of-Spain, authorities said. Emergency workers rescued 45 students and seven teachers who were left stranded at their school when a bridge was destroyed in Matelot, on the country's north coast.
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