Irma kills 17 in Caribbean
At least a million displaced as hurricane heads for United States
Cap- hatien: Hurricane Irma ripped through the Caribbean, leaving a trail of devastation and killing 17 as it barrelled towards the United States where up to a million people have been told to flee.
So far, 1.2 million people have been affected by Irma, the Red Cross said.
But that number looks set to rise – and could reach as high as 26 million, the agency said.
With the monster storm expected to reach the American south by the weekend, coastal areas of Florida and Georgia were battening down the hatches and carrying out their biggest evacuation since 2005.
“The entire South-eastern United States better wake up and pay attention,” warned US federal emergency chief Brock Long.
“It will be truly devastating.” Roaring across the Caribbean, the rare Category Five hurricane laid waste to a series of tiny islands like St Martin, where 60% of homes were wrecked, before slamming into the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
By Friday morning, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) had downgraded Irma to Category Four with maximum wind speeds of up to 250kph, while warning it was still extremely dangerous.
On many islands, violent winds have ripped roofs and facades off buildings, hurling lumps of concrete, cars and even shipping containers aside.
At least two people were killed in Puerto Rico, and more than half of its three million residents were without power after rivers broke their banks in the centre and north of the island.
Another four people were killed on the US Virgin Islands, with the governor’s office saying a number of badly injured people had been airlifted to Puerto Rico.
One person died in tiny Barbuda which also suffered “absolute devastation”, with 300 people evacuated to Antigua and up to 30% of properties demolished.
St Martin, a pristine island resort divided between France and the Netherlands, also suffered the full fury of the storm, as did the French island of St Barthelemy.
France said at least nine people had been killed across its Caribbean territories and seven more were missing. There were 112 people injured, including two seriously, said Interior Minister Gerard Collomb.
Six out of 10 homes were left uninhabitable, with insurers in Paris estimating their overall costs would likely be “much higher” than €
200mil (RM1.01bil).
On the Dutch side of St Martin, one person died, officials said.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander will head to the island of Curacao to the south tomorrow for a briefing on the aid operation, and may travel on to St Martin, officials said.
“It’s as if a bomb went off. Before, everything was so beautiful and green here. Now everything is as grey as a Dutch winter,” retired police officer Klaas Groen told Dutch newspaper Algemeen
Dagblad.
A state of emergency has been declared in the British Virgin Islands where residents spoke of scenes of “total devastation”.
“Our downstairs doors suddenly blew out, which was terrifying,” Emily Killhoury told the BBC from her home in Tortola.
“We eventually emerged at about 7pm to see total devastation.”
Britain’s defence ministry said it was sending two transport planes carrying personnel, supplies and recovery equipment. — AFP