Muted Hurricane Matthew still packs potent punch

Now weakened, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007 unleashed torrential rains and powerful winds as it churned slowly north after pummelling the southeastern coast of the United States, killing at least 11 people in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina since Thursday and leaving more than two million businesses and homes without power. Storm damage in the United States, however, was much less than in Haiti where Matthew took nearly 900 lives. Early on Sunday, Matthew threatened coastal communities in North Carolina and Virginia, where flash flood warnings were issued and gusts of winds of 120 kph were recorded. Forecasters warned that widespread flooding was possible from heavy rain - 15 inches (40 cm) was expected to fall in some areas - along with massive storm surges and high tides.Matthew, which topped out as a ferocious Category 5 storm days before has been downgraded to Category 1. It made US landfall on Saturday near McClellanville, South Carolina, a village 30 miles (48 km) north of Charleston that was devastated by a Category 4 hurricane in 1989.

Cholera has killed at least 13 people in southwest Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, officials said, as government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country to repair treatment centres and reach the epicentre of one outbreak. The government said there would be three days of national mourning. Six people died of cholera in a hospital in the town of Randel, which is inland on the peninsula, and another seven died in the coastal town of Anse-d’Ainault on the western tip, the officials said, likely as flood waters mixed with sewage. Cholera causes severe diarrhoea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.