They feared contamination of the underground water supply, which people here access through wells. Dominican officials said they plan to use planes to spray disinfectant over the border town of Jimani to keep decomposing bodies from spreading disease.
"It's horrific. People are finding people in very odd and unreachable places -- even hanging from the tops of trees," said Sheyla Biamby of Catholic Relief Services in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital.
The flooding has left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and international aid organizations warned of the possibility of finding many more hungry survivors and decaying bodies in remote areas. US-led troops packed inflatable dinghies to reach outlying villages.
"The magnitude of the disaster is much worse than we expected with many, many more people affected," said Guy Gavreau, director of the UN World Food Program in Haiti.
French troops rushed yesterday to Jimani, erecting tents for the homeless and burying 23 bodies recovered from the banks of a saltwater lake crawling with crocodiles.
Across the border in Mapou, International Committee of the Red Cross workers pulled seven decomposing bodies from an area of submerged homes where only the tops of palm trees showed above water and mud. They placed the corpses in body bags and buried them in higher ground.
Half the homes in Mapou -- some 1,300 -- have been destroyed, Biamby said.
"We are trying to get a count but we estimate about a thousand dead" just among the 3,500 people of Mapou, said US Lieutenant Colonel Duane Perry, who commanded Marines as they ferried emergency supplies and aid workers in helicopters yesterday.
The aid workers treated people with broken limbs and gashes from aluminum roofs that broke off when the torrents of water descended Monday after three days of heavy rains.
Hundreds gathered in Mapou as World Food Program workers handed out bags of rice and beans and bottles of water -- meant to provide their first meal since Monday, though each family got only two quarts of water to quench their thirst and cook their rice and beans.
In the crowd was Jean-Claude Germain, a 25-year-old farmer who said he and his wife escaped the floods "by the grace of God."
