dpa
Havana
Jamaica was bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Beryl, which has already killed several people and razed entire islands to the ground in its destructive path through the Caribbean.
According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), the eye of the storm was likely pass over Jamaica on Wednesday, bringing life-threatening winds and storm surges. The outer winds of the hurricane were already causing heavy rain on the Caribbean island early on Wednesday.
“I am now declaring the whole of Jamaica to be a disaster area ... for the next seven days,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a national address late on Tuesday.
An island-wide curfew was set to go into effect between the hours of 6 am [1100 GMT] and 6 pm, he said. This was “to ensure the safety of everyone during the passage of the storm, and prevent any movement with the intent to carry out criminal activity.”
The final preparations being made in Jamaica included providing emergency shelters and cleaning road drains to try and prevent flooding. The airports in Kingston and Montego Bay were to be closed overnight.
Disaster in Grenada Beryl was temporarily upgraded to a “potentially catastrophic” category 5 - the highest level - late on Monday, but has since lost some of its intensity, the NHC said. With sustained maximum winds of 230 kilometres per hour, Beryl is now a category 4 storm, just below the threshold of 251 km/h for category 5.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was struck by a falling tree during Hurricane Beryl, according to the government.
