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Hurricane Beryl is barreling toward Jamaica as a Category 4 storm, prompting curfew and disaster warnings, after charting a deadly path through Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Grenada was left with “unimaginable” destruction, prime minister Dickon Mitchell said after the storm destroyed buildings and left several people dead.
“We have to rebuild from the ground up,” he told the media after visiting the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
Officials said about 98 per cent of the buildings on the islands, home to 6,000 people, had been damaged or destroyed.
Four people have been confirmed dead in the region and three in Venezuela, taking the death toll to seven.
Beryl intensified to the earliest Category 5 storm recorded in the Atlantic overnight before weakening back to Category 4 on Tuesday.
Ahead of Beryl’s arrival, Jamaica has been declared a disaster area and a curfew has been imposed on Wednesday.
The storm will likely maintain its strength as it reaches Jamaica but it is expected to weaken afterwards. However, meteorologists have raised concerns about “increasing risk” to the US if it remains strong as it could potentially move north impacting Texas, Louisiana and New Orleans.
Hurricane Beryl: Travel advice after storm causes severe damage – with ‘life-threatening’ winds forecast
The Independent’s Travel Correspondent Simon Calder explores what is being done for travellers in the region and what are their options.
Read the full article below:
Watch: NOAA plane flies into the eye of Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl is the earliest category five storm on record
Hurricane Beryl has become the earliest hurricane on record to develop into a category five storm.
This means its winds and sea surges could prove catastrophic, as warming oceans fuelled destruction across the Caribbean.
Simon Stiell, the head of the UN’s climate change authority, who is from Carriacou, said his homeland had been “hammered by Hurricane Beryl”.
“It’s clear that the climate crisis is pushing disasters to record-breaking new levels of destruction,” he said.
Pictured: latest Hurricane Beryl damage
National Hurricane Center: 'Potential for catastrophic damage'
The director of the United States National Hurricane Center has said Hurricane Beryl could have catastrophic consequences as it passes over Jamaica.
Dr Michael Brennan said: “We we could see the potential, obviously, of the core of a major hurricane moving across Jamaica with the potential for devastating to catastrophic wind damage.”
He further warned of "widespread damage" to homes and infrastructure and a potential storm surge of five to eight feet.
Jamaica’s capital Kingston could see “potentially devastating wave action on top of that storm surge, creating a life-threating situation as well,” Dr Brennan added.
Mapped: Hurricane Beryl powers through Caribbean islands as Category 4 storm
Hurricane Beryl is barreling towards Jamaica as a Category 4 storm after making landfall in the Windward Islands, bringing devastating winds and storm surges that have destroyed homes, wiped out power, and left at least seven people dead.
The storm continues to beat records, first becoming the earliest Category 4 hurricane and later the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic.
Read the full story below to see where Beryl will hit:
Union island residents left homeless
Residents in Union Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, have been left homeless after their houses were decimated by Hurricane Beryl.
“There are hardly any buildings left standing. Houses are flattened, roads are blocked, the electricity poles are down in the streets,” Katrina Coy, a resident of Union island told the BBC.
She added every building on the island had been destroyed or badly damaged.
Hurricane Beryl named earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic
Hurricane Beryl has now beaten two historic records in the Atlantic.
Beryl was named the earliest Category 5 hurricane recorded in the Atlantic after it strengthened late on Monday, the National Hurricane Center has said. The previous title was held by Hurricane Emily, who reached Category 5 on July 16, 2005.
Beryl was also named the earliest-ever Category 4 hurricane as it approached the eastern Caribbean over the weekend, as well as the only Category 4 in the month of June.
In this category, Beryl beat Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005.
The deadly storm weakened back down to a Category 4 on Tuesday afternoon. It is now barreling towards Jamaica, where officials warn residents should rush life-saving protections to completion.
World Central Kitchen delivering aid to destroyed Union Island
Food aid charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) have begun delivering food and water to Union Island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines after it was ravaged by Beryl.
“We are mobilising across the Caribbean to access the hardest hit islands to get some support to the community here that has experienced a Category 4 storm,” a WCK worker said in a video posted on X.
The team was able to deliver water, fruit and sandwiches after arriving on the island by helicopter.
World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres said in a separate post that the organization is delivering aid to multiple islands that were hit by Beryl.
U.N. Climate Change Executive’s home damaged by Beryl
One of the homes that Beryl damaged belongs to the parents of UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, who is from Carriacou, Granada.
The storm also destroyed the home of his late grandmother. In a statement, Stiell said that the climate crisis is worsening, faster than expected. “Whether in my homeland of Carriacou — hammered by Hurricane Beryl, or in the heatwaves and floods crippling communities in some of the world’s largest economies, it’s clear that the climate crisis is pushing disasters to record-breaking new levels of destruction,” he said.
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2024-07-03 09:50:39Z
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