The death toll from Hurricane Melissa on Thursday rose to nearly 50 people, officials said, after the ferocious storm devastated Caribbean islands and was bearing down on Bermuda.
Flooding was expected to subside in the Bahamas, although high water could persist in Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the US National Hurricane Center said.
The government urged residents to take precautionary measures against the still-powerful storm.
Photo: AFP
Melissa smashed into Jamaica and Cuba with enormous force, and residents were assessing their losses and the long road to recovery.
“The confirmed death toll from Hurricane Melissa is now at 19,” Jamaican Minister of Education, Youth and Information Dana Morris Dixon said.
Communications and transportation access remains largely down in Jamaica and Cuba, and comprehensive assessment of the damage could take days.
In Haiti, the country’s civil defense agency said that the death toll had risen to 30, with 20 people injured and another 20 missing.
More than 1,000 homes have been flooded, with about 16,000 people in shelters, it said.
In Cuba, people struggled through inundated streets lined with flooded and collapsed homes.
The storm smashed windows, downed power cables and mobile communications, and tore off roofs and tree branches.
Cuban authorities said about 735,000 people had been evacuated — mainly in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Holguin and Guantanamo.
Meanwhile, the US has mobilized disaster assistance response teams, and urban search and rescue personnel, and the teams were on the ground in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Bahamas, a US Department of State official said. Teams were en route to Haiti too.
The British government announced ￡2.5 million (US$3.3 million) in emergency funding for the region, and also said it was chartering “limited” flights to help British nationals leave.
In Jamaica, authorities said confirming deaths was difficult, as access to the hardest-hit areas was limited, and some people were still unable to reach family and loved ones.
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
RSS