PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – The leader of Haiti is calling the post-Hurricane Sandy situation in his country “a disaster of major proportions.” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe says “The whole south is under water.”

Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas also took direct hits from the storm, but the majority of deaths and the most extensive damage is in Haiti, where it has rained almost non-stop since Tuesday. The official death toll there stands at 44, with 12 people missing and rivers still rising.

With some 370,000 Haitians still living in flimsy shelters as a result of a devastating earthquake in 2010, emergency officials had to move nearly 18,000 people again to temporary shelters as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

In the Caribbean, officials say the hurricane has left at least 58 people dead in addition to destroying or badly damaging thousands of homes.