At least 21 people, including three children, have died after heavy rainfall inundated the Dominican Republic over the weekend, authorities said Sunday.

Torrential storms over the past 48 hours have caused flooding, damaged infrastructure and brought down houses in the Caribbean nation, in what President Luis Abinader has called the "largest rainfall event ever" in the country's history.

Some 13,000 people have been evacuated across the country, according to the Emergency Operations Center, and a majority of the nation's 32 provinces are under alert.