A dream holiday visiting her sister in the Dominican Republic turned into a nightmare for Jessica Ambler when a deadly hurricane struck.

Meanwhile, her mother Liz was busy at a wool fair in China, blissfully unaware of the danger to her two daughters, Jessica and Louise.

For five days the two young women coped with floods and 100mph-plus blasts that left many dead and 200,000 homeless.

Jessica, a 22-year-old Oxford graduate, from Main Street, Wilsden, was trapped in the southern villages of La Hoya and Barahona, after police blew up the road leading to the city of Santa Domingo to avert flooding.

She had been due to fly home on September 21 after a trip to see Louise, 24, who works as the project director for Third World charity organisation Community Partnership Association.

Jessica said: "I was all ready to go when Air France explained that I couldn't depart on the Monday. They told me: 'You won't be going anywhere until Thursday.

"And when the main road out was blown up, I was going out of my mind. I was supposed to be starting a new job and it looked at one point as if I might not get out for up to a month."

The days that followed turned into a living hell as the electricity supply was cut off and communication with the outside world ceased.

She was also forced to witness some horrific incidents including a man being dragged dead out of the mud and police reports of a machete-wielding man running amok in a desperate bid to beat the petrol ration.

She saw mothers thrusting their children into an American friend's car as the floods threatened and a father and his child drown as they fell into the water. She also had to watch her sister weigh her responsibilities to Jessica against her love for her native boyfriend Emillio, his family and their base in La Hoya.

Eventually she agreed to be evacuated to the relative safety of Barahona.

Jessica said: "It was heartbreaking for her. She is in love with him and tried to persuade people to leave. She was worried that it seemed like she was deserting them."

Three days later, Louise, a fluent Spanish speaker, managed to get her sister on board a small aeroplane taking three others from Barahona to Saint Domingo for just £40 - two Germans paid £300 each.

Their mother Liz said: "I had no idea Jessica was still there when I caught a BBC World Service report on the Friday. The phone has been red hot with people asking about her. In a way it was a good thing I didn't know."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.