Flooding forces 20,000 to evacuate in the Dominican Republic

More than 20,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes in the Dominican Republic by torrential rain and flooding, and meteorologists say another tropical storm is already on the horizon. The mass displacement comes less than two months after Hurricane Matthew struck the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, destroying 90 percent of southern Haiti and leading to hundreds of deaths.

While the Dominican Republic suffered less damage relative to its western neighbor, the country still had fatalities and more than 800 evacuees. Now, two weeks of interrupted rains in the Dominican Republic have rendered 131 small towns inaccessible after nearby rivers overflowed and flooded more than 4,000 homes, Juan Manuel Méndez, coordinator of the Dominican Emergency Operations Center, told Voice of America Monday. READ MORE