Hurricane Matthew has killed at least 140 people, the death toll in struggling Haiti alone rising to 136, local officials told Reuters, as the storm headed northward on Thursday battering the Bahamas en route to Florida.

Many were killed by falling trees, flying debris and swollen rivers. Southern and western Haiti bore the brunt.

The deaths included a group of 24 people killed in the coastal town of Roche-a-Bateau.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said the town’s delegate Louis Paul Raphael.

Four people were killed earlier in neighboring Dominican Republic.

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