Aid for islands hampered by looting and weather

Pointe-Pitre: High winds and foul weather disrupted emergency relief efforts for hurricane-hit islands in the Caribbean as local authorities attempted to deliver aid and prevent looting.

Two days after Hurricane Irma swept over the eastern Caribbean, killing at least 17 people and devastating thousands of homes, some islands braced for a second battering from Hurricane Jose this weekend.

“We’ve not got water or electricity,” said Olivier Toussaint, who lives on St Barts with his 10-year-old daughter, adding that they were planning to go to a friend’s underground bunker before Hurricane Jose hits.

Officials on the island of Guadeloupe, where French aid efforts are being coordinated, suspended boat crossings to the hardest-hit territories of St Martin and St Barts where 11 people have died.

The French meteorological agency has placed both the Caribbean islands on red alert, warning of storm surges of between 5m and 7m.

Jose is barrelling along a similar path as Irma towards hard-hit St Martin, Anguilla, Barbuda and the British Virgin Islands among others.

The governor of the British Virgin Islands, Gus Jaspert, issued a recorded message to residents, saying he had declared a state of emergency.

Like France and the Netherlands, whose Caribbean territories are a legacy of colonialism, Britain, too, sent navy ships, soldiers and supplies to help with relief efforts in the region.

Hundreds of police reinforcements and rescue teams began arriving on St Martin, an island divided between France and the Netherlands, amid reports of pillaging and shortages of drinking water, food and fuel.

The Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad on Friday quoted a witness as saying that “people armed with revolvers and machetes are in the streets ... No-one is safe”.

“The situation is serious,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, when questioned about the looting.

“We will not abandon Sint Maarten,” he vowed, referring to the island’s alternative name in Dutch. — AFP