Hurricane Beryl has strengthened to a “potentially catastrophic” Category 5 storm as it razed several islands in the Caribbean, the US National Hurricane Center said on Tuesday. Up to 7 storms of Category 3 or higher are expected this year due to warming ocean temperatures and weather patterns related to the La Nina phenomenon.
Hurricane Beryl has strengthened into a top-level category 5 storm after it swept across several islands in the southeastern Caribbean, dumping heavy rain and unleashing devastating winds.
Beryl is now the earliest category 5 storm in the Atlantic on record and has developed into a “potentially catastrophic” hurricane, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The NHC said in its latest update early on Tuesday that Beryl was “still intensifying,” with recent data showing maximum sustained winds had increased to almost 165 miles (265 kilometers) per hour.
Grenada’s Carriacou Island took a direct hit from the storm’s “extremely dangerous eyewall” early Monday, with sustained winds at upwards of 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.
Nearby islands, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines, also experienced “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge,” it said.
“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a news conference.
“We are not yet out of the woods,” Mitchell said, noting that while no deaths had been reported so far, he could not say for sure that none had occurred.
(AFP)
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Publish date : 2024-07-02 05:42:48
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