MAULED BY MARIA
ANOTHER 160mph hurricane bears down on British Virgin Islands
A CATASTROPHIC storm was bearing down on the British Virgin Islands last night – barely a fortnight after they were devastated by Hurricane Irma.
Another Category 5 storm, Maria, yesterday wreaked ‘mind-boggling devastation’ on nearby Dominica. Its prime minister posted live updates as 160mph gales tore through the Caribbean island – and destroyed his home.
Roosevelt Skerrit wrote: ‘My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.’
Maria has been moving on a similar track to Irma, and could this morning hit the ‘extremely vulnerable’ BVI, where people are only starting to rebuild after suffering widespread destruction earlier this month.
And the 3.4 million people on the nearby US island of Puerto Rico were warned to ‘leave their homes or die’. If Maria retains its current strength, it will be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years.
The BVI were under curfew last night as premier Orlando Smith warned: ‘Effects such as potential flooding and high winds that can turn debris into dangerous projectiles can have a greater and more treacherous impact for us. Many residents are still displaced, homes are not fully secured and our natural protections have had severe damage due to the passage of Hurricane Irma.
‘Our islands are extremely vulnerable right now.’ More than 1,300 British troops have been deployed to the region since Irma, and the UK has also sent food, shelter kits and buckets for clean water.
The Foreign Office has also warned against any travel to the archipelago, where UK overseas territories Montserrat and Anguilla are in Maria’s path.
The storm ripped across Dominica as Mr Skerrit updated his 75,000 citizens on Facebook. He wrote: ‘We do not know what is happening outside. We not dare look out. All we are hearing is the sound of the fury of the wind. As we pray for its end!’
After the storm, he wrote of ‘mind-boggling’ damage, adding: ‘Initial reports are of widespread devastation. So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace.
‘My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.
‘We will need help, my friend, we will need help of all kinds.’