Fearsome Hurricane Irma cut a path of devastation across the northern Caribbean, leaving at least 10 dead and thousands homeless yesterday after destroying buildings and uprooting trees on a track that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida.
The most potent Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever, Irma weakened only slightly yesterday morning and remained a powerful Category 5 storm with winds of 285kph, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
The storm was increasingly likely to rip into heavily populated South Florida early on Sunday, prompting the governor to declare an emergency and officials to impose mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the Miami metro area and the Florida Keys.
Photo: AFP / RCI.fm / Rinsy Xieng
French Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb told France Info radio that eight people had died and 23 were injured in the nation’s Caribbean island territories, and he said the toll on Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy could be higher because rescue teams have yet to finish their inspection of the islands.
“The reconnaissance will really start at daybreak,” Collomb said.
At a news conference, Collomb also said 100,000 food rations have been sent to the islands, the equivalent of four days of supplies.
“It’s a tragedy, we’ll need to rebuild both islands,” he said. “Most of the schools have been destroyed.”
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he would go to the islands as soon as weather conditions permit.
In the UK, the government said Irma inflicted “severe and in places critical” damage to the British overseas territory of Anguilla.
British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Alan Duncan said the Caribbean island took the full force of the hurricane.
He told lawmakers yesterday that the British Virgin islands have also suffered “severe damage.”
To the east, authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands devastated by the storm’s record winds. Communications were difficult with areas hit by Irma and information on damage trickled out.
Nearly every building on Barbuda was damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island early on Wednesday and about 60 percent of its about 1,400 residents were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said.
“It is just really a horrendous situation,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island.
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