At least six dead in rain-ravaged Haiti

At least six people, including a child, were killed in Haiti when their homes collapsed during heavy rains that have ravaged Haiti for several days, the Civil Protection Office said Friday. The victims were members of two families living in a neighborhood erected on a hill in the Petionville suburb of the capital. Nadia Lochard of Haiti's Civil Protection Office said that three women, two men and a girl died "when their homes collapsed as they were carried away in a mudslide." "It was difficult to find their bodies buried under much mud," she told AFP. Three more bodies were also found in another neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, but the authorities could not confirm whether they had been killed by the rains. Several neighborhoods of the capital were flooded and streets were heavily damaged following the rains still hitting Haiti. The humanitarian community launched a plea for urgent help to obtain funds for the needy still living in often squalid camps over two years after a devastating 2010 quake. Over half a million Haitians still live in camps for the displaced, where they are threatened by flooding at the start of a rainy season that has already ravaged streets and roads. "I have a long held a fascination with volcanoes having read Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' as a young boy," Branson said on the website. "Volcanoes are the next great unexplored terrain. What can I say, I lava challenge!" Despite his disappointment over the Mariana Trench, perhaps Branson is also a fan of another Verne novel: "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."