BRIDGETOWN: Hurricane Beryl has strengthened right into a top-level class 5 storm after it swept across several islands in the southeastern Caribbean, dumping heavy rain and unleashing devastating winds.
Beryl is now the earliest class 5 storm within the Atlantic on file and has developed right into a “probably catastrophic” hurricane, the US Nationwide Hurricane Middle (NHC) stated.
The NHC stated in its newest replace early on Tuesday (Jul 2) that Beryl was “nonetheless intensifying,” with latest knowledge displaying most sustained winds had elevated to virtually 265 kmh.
Grenada’s Carriacou Island took a direct hit from the storm’s “extraordinarily harmful eyewall” early Monday, with sustained winds at upwards of 240 kmh, the NHC stated.
Close by islands, together with St. Vincent and the Grenadines, additionally skilled “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge,” it stated.
“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell instructed a information convention.
“We’re not but out of the woods,” Mitchell stated, noting that whereas no deaths had been reported thus far, he couldn’t say for certain that none had occurred.
Video obtained by AFP from St. George’s in Grenada confirmed heavy downpours with timber buffeted by gusts.
Mitchell stated afterward social media the federal government was working to get aid provides to each Carriacou and the island of Petite Martinique on Tuesday.
“The state of emergency remains to be in impact. Stay indoors,” he wrote on Fb.