In Jamaica, the toll is being taken of the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl, after the Caribbean island spent several hours in suspense due to the intense rains and extremely strong winds caused by the weather phenomenon.
Initial reports indicate that the storm, described by experts as “historic”, has left vast areas flooded, some 400,000 people without electricity and at least one dead.
Overnight the country’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness extended the curfew throughout the country.
Less strong, but just as dangerous
In the last few hours Beryl has continued to weaken, becoming a category three hurricane. However, it remains dangerous and authorities in the Cayman Islands, where the phenomenon is heading, have therefore declared an alert.
Early Thursday morning, much of the Cayman Islands was experiencing heavy rains, as well as strong winds and waves.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) estimates that Beryl will reach the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico on Friday and hit the east coast of that country and the southwestern U.S. by Saturday.
So far the storm has already hit the small islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and northern Venezuela has left eight dead.
Although the Jamaican authorities have lifted the hurricane warning, they have replaced it with a flash flood warning as the rains continue.
BBC correspondent on the island, Nick Davis, reported that Jamaica “has been spared the worst of the winds” and reported that Now the real concern is the rainfall.
“It has been raining heavily for about 12 hours,” he said, adding that vast areas of crops have been flooded.
“It’s terrible. Everything has disappeared. I’m at home and I’m scared.”a resident of an agricultural area told Reuters.
Authorities have set up 900 shelters to which residents of flooded areas are being moved.
Blindly
Beryl has also hit Jamaica’s basic services.
More than 400,000 people were without power on Thursday, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) said.
Hours earlier, the company announced that it was forced to stop repairing power lines in some locations due to safety concerns for its workers.
The lack of light was complicating the task of determining the damage..
“Only with daylight will we have a real sense of how much damage has been done,” Davis added.
Agriculture Minister Floyd Green, for his part, hinted that the damage was significant.
“A significant number of roofs have been lost, many homes have been destroyed, trees have been uprooted, light poles have been knocked down and almost all roads are impassable,” he said on his X account (formerly Twitter).
Something “unimaginable”
Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has called the damage caused by the storm, which passed over the small island on Monday, “unimaginable.”
Authorities said that 98% of the buildings in the nation of 6,000 inhabitants had been damaged or destroyed.
In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro confirmed that there were at least three dead and several people missing in the coastal state of Sucre. In that same area, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was injured by a falling tree when she was attending to the emergency.
Three more people have died in Granada and one more person has died in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, according to authorities in both countries.
The latest victim is believed to have occurred in Jamaica The woman was in her 20s and died after a tree fell on her, said Richard Thomson, head of the Caribbean country’s natural disaster agency, to The New York Times.
Caribbean media reports that the United Nations has unblocked US$4 million from its emergency response fund to assist recovery in Jamaica, Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
An unseen phenomenon
Beryl has surprised scientists by becoming the most powerful hurricane to form so early in the Atlantic.
In the Windward Islands, it caused severe property damage with catastrophic winds and storm surge, the NHC reported.
In a post on X before the hurricane was upgraded to Category 5, University of Miami meteorology professor Brian McNoldy stated that “These islands have no experience with a Category 4 hurricane.”.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had warned of the implications of a storm becoming a major hurricane at this time of year.
“It’s surprising to see a forecast for a major hurricane (Category 3+) in June anywhere in the Atlantic, let alone this far east in the deep tropics,” Michael Lowry, a hurricane expert, said on social media.
“Only five major hurricanes (Category 3+) have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July.. Beryl would be the sixth and the earliest in this end of the tropical Atlantic,” he warned.
A very active season
In May, NOAA announced a “very active” season for this year that could bring between 17 and 25 storms big enough to be named.
Of those, at least seven are expected to be major hurricanes.
These forecasts are partly due to the high probability of the La Niña phenomenon forming during the second half of the year, following the effects of El Niño in 2023.
American researchers recently claimed that there is a 60% chance that La Niña will develop between June and August.and 85% of this will happen until the northern autumn.
The cooling effect of La Niña may also slightly slow the rate of global warming.
This could indicate that the record temperatures experienced last year are not evidence that the world has entered a more rapid phase of warming.
With additional reporting by Nick Davis, Alex Smith and Tiffany Wertheimer
Beam click here to read more stories from BBC News Mundo.
You can also follow us on Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and in Our new WhatsApp channelwhere you’ll find breaking news and our best content.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.
- The El Niño phenomenon is ending: what effects it had and what could happen with La Niña in the coming months
- “90% of the island was wiped out”: Hurricane Beryl’s devastating path through the Caribbean on its way to Mexico