Hurricane Beryl was roaring by Jamaica on Wednesday, with islanders scrambling to make preparations after the powerful Category 4 storm earlier killed at least six people and caused significant damage in the southeast Caribbean.

In Kingston, people boarded up windows, fishermen pulled their boats out of the water and workers dismantled roadside advertising boards to protect them from the lashing winds.

Kingston resident Pauline Lynch said that she had stockpiled food and water in anticipation of the storm’s arrival. With wind already whipping a light rain, Lynch said, “I have no control over what is coming so I just have to pray that all people of Jamaica is safe and we don’t suffer no deaths, no loss.”

By midday, winds howled in the capital, turning the sea into churning whitecaps as Beryl’s eye scraped by the island’s southern coast.

“We are very concerned about a wide variety of life threatening impacts in Jamaica,” including storm surge, high winds and flash flooding, said Jon Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Porter called Beryl “the strongest and most dangerous hurricane threat that Jamaica has faced, probably, in decades.”

A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Beryl was forecast to weaken slightly over the next day or two, but still be at or near major-hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica on Wednesday, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Jamaica was under a state of emergency as the island was declared a disaster zone hours before the impact of Hurricane Beryl.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that the disaster zone declaration will remain for the next seven days. He also announced an island-wide curfew between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

Security forces “will be fully mobilized to maintain public order and assist with disaster relief. As soon as the hurricane has passed, the security forces have developed strategic plans to counter any potential threat of looting or any other opportunistic crimes,” Holness warned.

An evacuation order was also issued for communities across Jamaica that are prone to flooding and landslides. Holness urged Jamaicans to move away from low-lying areas.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Haiti’s southern coast and the Yucatan’s east coast. Belize issued a tropical storm watch stretching south from its border with Mexico to Belize City.

Late Monday, Beryl became the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic and peaked at winds of 165 mph (270 kph) Tuesday before weakening to a still-destructive Category 4. On Wednesday, the storm’s center was about 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of Kingston. It had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 18 mph (30 kph). Hurricane strength winds extended 45 miles from the center.

In Miami, U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan in an online briefing said that people on the island should plan to stay sheltered throughout the day Wednesday with conditions only beginning to improve overnight.

Jamaica’s southern coast, where Kingston is located, was expected to bear the brunt of Beryl with coastal water levels rising to 6 or 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7 meters) above normal tide levels in some area.

Heavy rains of 4 to 8 inches, with up to a foot in isolated areas, threatened flash flooding and mudslides on the mountainous island, he said.

Mexico’s Caribbean coast was preparing for Beryl Wednesday. The government issued a hurricane warning for the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancun.

The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency said that Beryl is expected to make a rare double strike on Mexico. Laura Velázquez said the hurricane is expected to make landfall between late Thursday and early Friday along a relatively unpopulated stretch of the Caribbean coast between Tulum and the inland town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Because the coast there is largely made up of lagoons and mangroves, there are few resorts or hotels in the area south of Tulum.

The hurricane is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it crosses the Yucatan peninsula and reemerge over the weekend at storm strength into the Gulf of Mexico. Velázquez said that Beryl is then expected to hit Mexican territory a second time in the Gulf coast states of Veracruz or Tamaulipas, near the Texas border.

As Beryl barreled through the Caribbean Sea, rescue crews in southeastern islands fanned out to determine the extent of the damage the hurricane inflicted on Carriacou, an island in Grenada.

Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, officials said. Two other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela, where five people are missing, officials said. About 25,000 people in that area also were affected by heavy rainfall from Beryl.

One fatality in Grenada occurred after a tree fell on a house, Kerryne James, the environment minister, told The Associated Press. She said Carriacou and Petit Martinique sustained the greatest damage, with scores of homes and businesses flattened in Carriacou.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Tuesday there was no power, roads are impassable and the possible rise of the death toll “remains a grim reality.”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has promised to rebuild the archipelago. He noted that 90% of homes on Union Island were destroyed, and that “similar levels of devastation” were expected on the islands of Myreau and Canouan.

The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.

Grenada, known as the “spice isle,” is one of the world’s top exporters of nutmeg. Mitchell noted that the bulk of the spices are grown in the northern part of the island, which was hit hardest by Beryl.

India’s team celebrate with the winning trophy after defeating South Africa in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket, the final match between India and South Africa.
| Photo Credit: K.R. DEEPAK

The T20 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team’s departure from the Caribbean island has been delayed as the charter flight is yet to arrive here.

An Air India special charter flight named AIC24WC— Air India Champions 24 World Cup— is set to bring back the Indian squad, its support staff, the players’ families and some board officials and Indian media, who have been stranded here for the past three days due to Hurricane Beryl.

The Rohit Sharma-led side won the title after pulling off a thrilling seven-run win over South Africa in the final on June 29.

The flight, which took off from New Jersey, USA on July 2, is expected to land in Barbados around 2 a.m. local time.

As per the schedule, the flight is now expected to take off from Barbados at 4:30 a.m. (local time). It will take a 16-hour flying time to reach Delhi, where the team will land on July 4 at 6 a.m. (IST) if there are no further delays in their departure.

The Grantley Adams International Airport here resumed its operations on July 2. Earlier, the Indian team was scheduled to leave around 6 p.m. local time on July 2 and arrive at 7.45 p.m. (IST) on July 3.

The players are set to be felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the schedule of that event has not yet been finalised.

Hurricane Beryl has now become a Category 4 storm moving down from Category 5 and is headed towards Jamaica.

KINGSTON / PORT-AU-PRINCE:

Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica as a powerful Category 4 storm on Tuesday, threatening to dump rain on parts of Hispaniola after leaving at least three people dead on smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean.

Tropical storm conditions were expected on parts of the southern coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday evening, according to an advisory from the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

“Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands Wednesday night and Thursday,” the NHC said. A hurricane warning is in effect for both places.

In Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, which is in the grips of entrenched gang violence and an ongoing humanitarian crisis, strong winds took residents by surprise on Tuesday afternoon.

The country’s southwestern peninsula could get 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) of rain, with as much as 12 inches in some places, the NHC said. New Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille warned residents to take precautions and stay alert.

The unusually early hurricane, whose rapid strengthening scientists said was likely fueled by human-caused climate change, is expected to still be a hurricane when it passes near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands later this week.

Beryl, the 2024 Atlantic season’s first hurricane and the earliest storm on record to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, felled power lines and unleashed flash floods across smaller islands.

The storm hit St. Vincent and the Grenadines especially hard, according to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.

“The hurricane has come and gone, and it has left in its wake immense destruction,” he said. On one island in the Grenadines archipelago, Union Island, 90% of homes had been “severely damaged or destroyed,” he added.

The prime minister confirmed one death and said more fatalities could be confirmed in the coming days.

In a video briefing on Tuesday, Grenada’s prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, stressed that Carriacou and Petite Martinique, two of the three islands that make up the country, bore the brunt of the natural disaster.

“The situation is grim. There is no power. There is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings,” he said, citing impassable roads due to downed power lines and destroyed fuel stations crimping supplies.

Mitchell said at least two deaths were attributed to the impact of Beryl so far.

The hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (241 kph), is currently located about 360 miles (579 km) east-southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, according to the NHC.

The Miami-based hurricane centre estimates that the massive weather system is moving toward the west-northwest at a speed of 22 mph (35 kph).

In Jamaica, men hauled fishing boats out of the water and tied them down in preparation for the hurricane’s arrival, while others noted there was still time to prepare on Tuesday morning.

“We Jamaicans don’t take things serious,” said Standford Pusey, as he showed off items secured with plastic tarps.

In Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, north of St. Vincent, a video shared on social media showed heavy flooding in the streets as locals attempted to clear away debris.

In addition to Haiti’s southern coast, the NHC also posted a hurricane watch for Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, dotted with beach resorts popular with tourists.

Ahead of the storm’s approach expected Thursday night, Mexico’s defense ministry said the army, air force, and national guard had activated emergency response protocols in the three Yucatan states, with 120 shelters opened and nearly 4,900 troops on guard on the peninsula.

The unusually early timing and rapid intensification of the storm is partly due to warmer ocean temperatures, scientists say.

Climate change likely contributed to Beryl’s early formation, while also driving how quickly it intensified, according to scientists surveyed by Reuters, which could provide an unsettling preview of future storms.

Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to record highs, said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the U.S.-based National Center for Atmospheric Research. The warmer waters lead to more evaporation, which fuels more intense hurricanes featuring higher wind speeds, he said.

Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in under 10 hours, according to Andra Garner, a Rowan University meteorologist. That marked the fastest intensification ever recorded before September, the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, she added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kingston, Jamaica:

Hurricane Beryl was hurtling towards Jamaica Tuesday as a monster Category 5 storm, after killing at least five people and causing widespread destruction in a deadly sweep across the southeastern Caribbean.

Though expected to weaken slightly later Tuesday, the hurricane is still on track to slam into Jamaica on Wednesday as a “near-major” storm, bringing life-threatening winds, storm surge, rain and flash flooding, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned.

Beryl has already razed parts of the southeastern Caribbean as a Category 4 storm, killing at least three people in Grenada, one in St Vincent and the Grenadines, and one in Venezuela, officials said.

The Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, said the island of Carriacou — which the NHC said took a direct hit from the storm — has been all but cut off, with houses, telecommunications and fuel facilities there flattened by 150 miles (90 kilometers) per hour winds.

“We’ve had virtually no communication with Carriacou in the last 12 hours except briefly this morning by satellite phone,” he told a news conference.

The 13.5-square mile (35-square kilometer) island is home to around 9,000 people. At least two people there died, Mitchell said, with a third killed on the main island of Grenada when a tree fell on a house.

The family of UN climate chief Simon Stiell is among the residents of Carriacou. His office said his parents’ property was damaged.

Some 90 percent of the homes along with the airport on Union Island, in St Vincent, have also been damaged or destroyed, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said. The three-square mile island has a population of around 3,000.

Gonsalves said the storm also killed one person on another island, Bequia.

Beryl “has left in its wake immense destruction, pain and suffering,” he said in a Facebook video late Monday.

One man also died when swept away by a flooded river in the state of Sucre on Venezuela’s northeastern coast, officials there said.

Barbados appeared to have been spared the worst but was still hit with high winds and pelting rain, although officials reported no injuries so far.

Martinique was also largely spared, with damage to boats and some flooding in downtown Fort-de-France.

‘Alarming precedent’

Experts say it is extremely rare for such a powerful storm to form this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.

Beryl is the first hurricane since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June, and the earliest to reach Category 5 in July.

A Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale is considered a major hurricane.

Oceans are the main drivers of hurricanes, and there are many factors that go into their formation and intensity — but heat is a significant one.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Beryl “sets an alarming precedent for what is expected to be a very active hurricane season.”

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in late May that it expects this year to be an “extraordinary” hurricane season, with up to seven storms of Category 3 or higher.

The agency also cited warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures and conditions related to the weather phenomenon La Nina in the Pacific for the expected increase in storms.

Climate crisis ‘chief culprit’

Stiell, the UN climate chief, said climate change was “pushing disasters to record-breaking new levels of destruction”.

“Disasters on a scale that used to be the stuff of science fiction are becoming meteorological facts, and the climate crisis is the chief culprit,” he said Monday.

Beryl had maximum sustained winds of 165 miles (270 kilometers) per hour as it headed towards Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the NHC said in its latest update from 1200 GMT.

The storm is moving rapidly across the Caribbean Sea at 22 miles (35 kilometers) per hour, forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands by Thursday.

Tropical storm warnings have also been issued for the southern coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Hurricane force winds extend some 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the eye of the storm, the NHC said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)