SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) – Floodwaters and mudslides spawned by Tropical Storm Noel killed at least 48 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, officials said yesterday, raising the death toll as the storm regained force over water and curved toward Florida and the Bahamas.

Hardest-hit by the sluggish storm were the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The US National Hurricane Centre said the storm had emerged over the Atlantic and was regaining force after a day-long slog across Cuba, where little damage was reported.

The forecasters said Noel should bend to the northeast soon, veering away from a collision with Florida while threatening the Bahamas.

At 11 am, Noel’s top sustained winds were near 85 kph (50 mph), up from 65 kph (40 mph) earlier in the day.

It was centred about 280 kilometres (175 miles) south-southwest of Nassau in the Bahamas and was heading north-northwest near 13 kph (8 mph).

Noel’s outer bands pounded Hispaniola Tuesday even as the storm chugged further away from the island, which is made vulnerable to flash floods by its many denuded hillsides.

In the Dominican Republic, almost 12,000 people were driven from their homes and nearly 3,000 homes were destroyed, while collapsed bridges and swollen rivers have isolated 36 towns, said Dominican emergency services spokesman Luis Luna Paulino.

“The rains continue to fall and we fear for several families,” said Sergio Vargas, a merengue star and Dominican congressman who represents Villa Altagracia, a small town north of the capital, Santo Domingo.

Late Tuesday, Luna raised the Dominican death toll upward to at least 30 from 16, but did not release specifics of the deaths. Earlier in the day he acknowledged miscalculating a previous toll.

In neighbouring Haiti, the death toll rose from six to at least 18, including two women washed away by a river in the town of Gantier, Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti’s civil protection agency, said early Wednesday. Red Cross volunteers said a three-year-old boy drowned as his family tried to rescue him from a raging river in the neighbourhood of Duvivier.

In Port-au-Prince, thousands slogged through waist-high water that turned streets into brown rivers, carrying their last remaining possessions as they fled deluged shacks and makeshift homes. Refugees were brought by the truckload to the dense seaside slum of Cité Soleil, where they were packed into two schools and given food by volunteers.

About 2,000 people were evacuated from homes from the southern coastal city of Jacmel, where at least 150 residents were stranded on rooftops.

In Cuba, the government said about 1,000 homes had suffered damage, several thousand people had been evacuated from low-lying areas across the island and some schools were closed.

Bahamian authorities closed most government offices and lines formed at grocery stores and gas stations in Nassau, the capital. Rain from the outer bands of the storm forced tourists to cover themselves in trash bags or huddle for shelter in doorways.

Meanwhile, warnings were in effect for rough surf for much of South Florida, including the Miami area, as waves were already pounding the region’s beaches. Residents of a waterfront condominium in South Palm Beach were urged to evacuate after pounding surf destroyed a retaining wall that had been damaged earlier this month in another storm.