'Poorest of the poor' hit by Hurricane Matthew
Rescue workers in Haiti warned Thursday that the death toll from Hurricane Matthew could rise as they worked to establish the full extent of the damage.
"The most concerning thing is we really don't have a full picture. We don't have all the information we need in order to see how bad it is," said Christy Delafield, a communications officer with Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian aid agency.
Related: 12 photos that capture the destruction of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti
"This is due to a bridge being out," she said. "There have been landslides and the cell phone service has been unreliable. We need to get to the south of the country," she added.
Matthew made landfall in Haiti as a Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday. More than 250 people have been confirmed dead, as of Thursday night local time.
On Thursday, Civil Protection Service spokesman Joseph Edgard Celestin said the death toll does not take into account potential loss of life in the far southwest of the country, which has not been assessed due to "communication issues."
"What we are realizing, as we are going further ... is that there's been a lot of devastation and a lot of damage and probably a lot more than what we had initially assessed," said Ariane Quentier, spokeswoman for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti.
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