Maria knocks out power to 3.5m

HURRICANE Maria brought devastation to Puerto Rico yesterday as 155mph winds tore through the Caribbean.

The strongest storm to hit the US island for 85 years knocked out power to its entire population of 3.5million.

It made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane just before 2am local time. A spokesman for Puerto Rico’s governor said: ‘This is total devastation ... something of historic proportions.’ The British Virgin Islands esaped the worst of the storm. Maria killed at least nine on Guadeloupe and the Commonwealth island of Dominica. Tomorrow, it is due to hit the Turks and Caicos islands, a British territory still recovering from Hurricane Irma earlier this month.