The storm left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, killing at least seven people
Kingston, Jamaica:
Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Mexico and the Cayman Islands early Thursday, threatening high winds and storm surge after hitting the southern coast of Jamaica.
Beryl weakened to a Category 3 storm overnight, with winds of 125 miles per hour, but is forecast to be “at or near major hurricane intensity” as it passes near the Caymans, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC). ).
“Strong winds, dangerous storm surge and damaging winds” were expected in the Cayman Islands overnight, the NHC said early Thursday.
The storm left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, killing at least seven people and bringing flash floods and mudslides as it moved towards Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
The storm is the first since NHC records began reaching Category 4 levels in June and the first to reach Category 5 in July.
Mexican officials have been preparing, with the NHC warning that Beryl will remain a hurricane until it makes landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.
“We will have heavy rain and gusty winds starting Thursday,” said Civil Protection National Coordinator Laura Velazquez, announcing the deployment of hundreds of soldiers, marines and electrical workers in anticipation of damage.
The government has prepared 112 shelters with a capacity for about 20,000 people and suspended school in Quintana Roo state, where Beryl is likely to strike.
In Jamaica, more than 400,000 people were without power, according to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper, citing a government company.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness had imposed a curfew from 6am to 6pm for the entire island of 2.8 million and urged Jamaicans to follow evacuation orders.
Desmon Brown, manager of the National Stadium in Kingston, said his staff had scrambled to be ready.
“We’ve taped up our windows and covered our equipment including computers, printers and things like that. Other than that it’s mainly concrete so there’s not much we can do,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer newspaper.
‘No communication’
Beryl has already left a trail of deaths with at least three dead in Grenada, where the storm made landfall on Monday, as well as one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and three in Venezuela.
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said it would take a “Herculean effort” to rebuild the city after the substantial destruction and that “90 percent of homes were blown away” on Union Island.
“Most of the country has no electricity, and more than half currently has no water,” he said.
Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said the island of Carriacou, which was hit by the eye of the storm, has been all but cut off and homes, telecommunications and fuel facilities there have been razed.
About 9,000 people live on the 35 square kilometer island. At least two people died there, Mitchell said, and a third died on the main island of Grenada when a tree fell on a house.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, one person on Bequia island was reported dead from the storm, while a man died in Venezuela’s northeastern coastal state of Sucre when he was swept away by a flooded river, officials there said.
Climate change
It is extremely rare for such a powerful storm to form so early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.
Warm ocean temperatures are critical for hurricanes, and North Atlantic waters are currently between two and five degrees Fahrenheit (1-3 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
UN climate chief Simon Stiell, who has family on the island of Carriacou, said climate change was “driving disasters to record-breaking new levels of destruction.”
“Disasters on a scale that used to be science fiction are becoming meteorological facts, and the climate crisis is the main culprit,” he said on Monday, reporting that his parents’ property had been damaged.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
