Tropical storm flooding kills 9 in Caribbean

By Manuel Jimenez

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) - Flash flooding from Tropical Storm Olga's torrential rains killed at least eight people in the Dominican Republic and forced tens of thousands out of their homes, government officials said on Wednesday.

Olga was also blamed for mudslides that killed a man in Puerto Rico.

The storm weakened on Wednesday to a tropical depression after it exited Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But flooding remained a deadly threat as the remnants of Olga moved west across the Caribbean, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

By late afternoon, Olga was just a broad mass of thunderstorms centered 65 miles north of Kingston, Jamaica. It was moving rapidly west on a course that would keep the center south of Cuba and take it over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula by Saturday.

Olga's top sustained winds dropped to 35 mph (55 kph), below the threshold to be called a tropical storm, and forecasters expected it to dissipate further on Thursday.

But the system was expected to drench the southeast Bahamas and eastern Cuba, while dumping several more inches of rain on Hispaniola, where totals could reach 10 inches, forecasters said.

In the Dominican Republic, heavy rains sent the Yaque del Norte River over its banks in the northern city of Santiago.

Rushing waters submerged and flipped cars, and sent panicked residents to the treetops and rooftops.