Deaths of eight nursing home patients increase Irma toll to 81

HOLLYWOOD, Florida: Eight elderly patients died after being left inside a stifling South Florida nursing home that lost power during Hurricane Irma, officials said yesterday, prompting a criminal investigation that has compounded a mounting loss of life from the storm.

The overall death toll from Irma climbed to 81 yesterday, with several hardhit Caribbean islands accounting for more than half the fatalities, and officials continued to assess damage inflicted by the second major hurricane to strike the United States mainland this year.

Irma killed at least 31 people in Florida, plus seven more in Georgia and South Carolina combined, authorities said.

One of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, Irma bore down on the Caribbean with devastating consequences before barrelling into the Florida Keys island chain on Monday. It then ploughed north up the Gulf Coast of the state before dissipating.

In addition to severe flooding across Florida and extensive property damage in the Keys, one of the chief hardships facing Florida residents has been widespread power outages that initially plunged more than half the state into darkness.

The outages had fatal consequences at the Rehabilitation Centre at Hollywood Hill, a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami. Three elderly residents were found dead yesterday inside the sweltering facility, which had been operating with little or no air conditioning, officials said.

Four more patients died at or en route to a nearby hospital and a fifth was later identified as having died the night before, bringing the tally of those who perished to eight, the city said.

Police said they have sealed off the building and opened a criminal probe after the remaining nursing home patients were transferred to neighbouring hospitals.

City officials described the interior of the building as ‘‘excessively hot’’.

The eight who died ranged in age from 71 to 99, according to the Broward County medical examiner’s office. The cause of their deaths has yet to be deter mined. But most of the surviving patients were treated for ‘‘respiratory distress, dehydration and heatrelated issues’’, a Memorial Regional Hospital spokesman said.

Total insured losses from the storm are expected to run about $US25 billion ($NZ34.5 billion), including $US18 billion in the US and $US7 billion in the Caribbean, catastrophe modeller Karen Clark & Company estimated yesterday.