Airports closed, coastal hotels were evacuated and tourists hunkered down in shelters as Hurricane Dean bore down on the eastern Caribbean.
The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was a large and dangerous storm, packing 160kph winds late on Thursday as it neared the islands of Martinique, Dominica and St. Lucia, where authorities urged people to stay indoors and out of danger.
Dean's center was expected to pass very near to St. Lucia and Martinique overnight, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an advisory early Friday.
In a region accustomed to rough weather, islanders stocked up on essentials and taped glass windows. But conditions ahead of the storm were deceptively calm and even some locals said it was hard to believe that danger loomed out at sea.
The storm, which had hovered far out at sea for days, was expected to begin passing over the islands of the Lesser Antilles early yesterday, then intensify as it enters the warm waters of the Caribbean and heads toward Jamaica.
St. Lucian acting Prime Minister Stephenson King, said the country's two commercial airports were closed on Thursday night as the storm's outer bands began moving through the islands. Martinique's main airport was also closed.
Dominica's tourist board said about 300 tourists on the island had been moved to secure areas while hotels have been stocked with a three-day supply of food and water. Hotels in Martinique also moved tourists from seaside rooms, while the government set up cots at schoolhouse shelters.
The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Dean would likely be a dangerous Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches the central Caribbean. Forecasters say it appeared to be heading south of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
At 2am yesterday, Dean was centered 135km east-southeast of Martinique, and 145km north-northwest of Barbados. It had top sustained winds of 160kph, with stronger gusts. Hurricane force winds extended 35km from the center and tropical storm force winds extended up to 220km.
Officials in Texas are watching Dean's movements, even as they cleaned up from Tropical Storm Erin.
The thunderstorms from Erin brought 18cm of rain to parts of San Antonio and Houston, where one person died and another was injured when the waterlogged roof of a storage unit outside a grocery store collapsed, Fire Chief Omero Longoria said. The National Hurricane Center said 25cm of rain was possible in some areas.
The flooding "has been a good training session, if you will," as officials track Dean's progress, said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the top elected official in the county that surrounds Houston.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS