Tropical system's rains kill 2

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent -- Mudslides killed two fishermen and destroyed three homes as heavy rains brought by a tropical depression overflowed river banks and made roads impassable in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, emergency officials said Tuesday.

Torrents of rain also swept away two bridges in Trinidad.

The poorly organized depression was moving south of Puerto Rico and was expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Gamma today or Thursday, said Richard Knabb, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It is not expected to threaten the United States.

It would be the 24th named storm of an already record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season. The previous record of 21 named storms had stood since 1933.

On the Grenadine island of Bequia on Monday, a mudslide buried two men in a party of 10 camping on a fishing trip near Rocky Bay, emergency management coordinator Howie Prince said.

The victims' friends tried to dig them out but were overtaken by a second landslide and fled. Emergency workers recovered the bodies early Tuesday, Prince said. The men were from the fishing village of Questelles, on the main island of St. Vincent.

Near the capital, Kingstown, landslides destroyed three houses and rivers burst their banks, making several roads impassable, Prince said.

One man was hospitalized with a head injury after his house collapsed. Another man lost all of his personal papers and most of his furniture.

The airport in St. Vincent was closed because of heavy rain and flooding in the terminal and debris on the runway.

In Trinidad, Monday's heavy rains unleashed flooding and landslides that washed away at least two bridges outside of the capital, Port-of-Spain, authorities said. Emergency workers rescued 45 students and seven teachers who were left stranded at their school when a bridge was destroyed in Matelot, on the country's north coast.

At 9 a.m. Central time, the depression was centered about 305 miles south-southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph, 4 mph under tropical storm strength and unchanged since Sunday night.

It was moving west-northwest near 12 mph.

The storm has been a poorly organized system due to the unchanged wind speed, said Richard Pasch, a U.S. hurricane specialist in Miami.

Dangerous rip currents and up to 12 inches of rain were possible across the Windward Islands, the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.