JEREMIE, Haiti (AP) — People across southwest Haiti were digging through the wreckage of their homes Friday, salvaging what they could of their meager possessions after devastating Hurricane Matthew killed hundreds of people in the impoverished country.

The central government’s official death toll stood at nearly 300, but an official in southwest Haiti said that figure did not include at least 80 more people, and authorities doing the on-ground assessment in remote corners of the southwestern peninsula said it would likely be significantly higher.

Saint-Victor Jeune, an official with the Civil Protection agency working in Beaumont, in the mountains on the outskirts of hard-hit Jeremie, said 82 bodies found by his team had not been recorded by authorities in the capital because of spotty communications. Most appeared to have died from falling debris from the winds that tore through the area at 145 mph on Tuesday.

“We don’t have any contact with Port-au-Prince yet and there are places we still haven’t reached,” Jeune said, as he and a team of Civil Protection agents in orange vests combed through the area.

The storm left signs of devastation all around the southwestern peninsula. Outside the coastal town of Jeremie, home after home was in ruins. Drew Garrison, a Haiti-based missionary who flew in Friday, said several fishing villages along the coast were submerged, and he could see bodies floating in the water.

“Anything that wasn’t concrete was flattened,” said Garrison, whose organization, Mission of Hope Haiti, based in Austin, Texas, was bringing in a barge loaded with emergency supplies on Saturday. “There were several little fishing villages that just looked desolate, no life.”

Solette Phelicin, a mother of five who lost her home and her small fruit and vegetable plot, watched from her yard as U.N. peacekeepers patrolled the small air strip. She said they were hungry and desperately in need of food. “Jeremie might get rebuilt after I’m dead, maybe, but I doubt it.”

As Haitians mourned their losses, they tried to recover what they could of their belongings. Homes throughout the area were piles of rubble, the roofs mangled or stripped away.

Telemaque Dieuseal, a 54-year-old farmer, fled his small house to stay with a cousin. When he returned, he could not find his TV, motorcycle or radio in the wreckage.

“The thieves were out all day after the storm stealing everything they could get,” Dieuseal said. “It’s going to take a long time to get back on my feet.”

Workers from the International Organization of Migration and other groups were going through the area to assess the damage and provide assistance, though their efforts were hampered by damaged roads, rough terrain and other factors.

“Devastation is everywhere,” said Pilus Enor, mayor of Camp Perrin, a town near the port city of Les Cayes on the peninsula’s south shore. “Every house has lost its roof.”