Port-au-Prince, Muharram 5, 1438, October 6, 2016, SPA -- Hurricane Matthew has killed at least 39 people, with the death toll in Haiti rising to 35, officials said Thursday as the storm moved northward, battering the Bahamas on its way to the U.S. state of Florida. Haiti’s civil-protection service said 23 people were killed, mostly by falling trees, flying debris, and flooding rivers. The interior ministry confirmed 12 other deaths across the country. Four people were killed earlier in neighboring Dominican Republic. There have been no reports of deaths so far from Cuba or the Bahamas. Matthew is the strongest hurricane in the Caribbean since Felix in 2007. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it lashed eastern Cuba and western Haiti with 235-kilometer-per-hour winds and heavy rain, destroying homes, crops, and livestock. Two days after Matthew hit Haiti’s remote southwestern peninsula, authorities and aid workers still lack a clear picture of what they fear is the country’s biggest disaster in years. As the weather began calming, convoys and helicopters have started venturing to isolated corners of the country to assess damage and determine how to help thousands of people. --SPA 18:20 LOCAL TIME 15:20 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w