Kingston, Jamaica:

Hurricane Beryl powered towards Mexico and the Cayman Islands early Thursday, threatening strong winds and a storm surge after battering Jamaica’s southern coast.

Beryl weakened to a Category 3 storm overnight, sustaining winds of 125 miles (200 kilometres) an hour, but is forecast to be “at or near major hurricane intensity” while it passes by the Caymans, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

“Strong winds, dangerous storm surge and damaging winds” were expected across the Cayman Islands overnight, the NHC said early Thursday.

The storm has left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean, killing at least seven people and bringing with it flash floods and mudslides as it moves towards Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

The storm is the first since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June and the earliest to reach Category 5 in July.

Mexican officials have scrambled to prepare, with the NHC warning Beryl will remain a hurricane until it makes landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.

“We will have intense rains and wind gusts” from Thursday, Civil Protection national coordinator Laura Velazquez said, announcing the deployment of hundreds of military personnel, marines and electricity workers in anticipation of damage.

The government has prepared 112 shelters with a capacity for around 20,000 people and suspended school in the state of Quintana Roo, where Beryl will likely hit.

In Jamaica, more than 400,000 people were without power, according to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper, citing a public service company.

Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness had declared a curfew from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm across the island of 2.8 million and urged Jamaicans to comply with evacuation orders.

Desmon Brown, manager of the National Stadium in Kingston, said his staff had scrambled to be ready.

“We’ve taped up our windows, covered our equipment — including computers, printers and that sort of thing. Apart from that, it’s mainly concrete so there’s not much we can do,” Brown told the Jamaica Observer newspaper.

‘No communication’

Beryl has already left a trail of death with at least three people killed in Grenada, where the storm made landfall Monday, as well as one in St Vincent and the Grenadines and three in Venezuela.

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, said that it would take a “herculean effort” to rebuild after the substantial destruction and that “90-odd percent of the houses were blown away” on Union Island.

“Most of the country doesn’t have electricity, and more than half without water at the moment,” he said.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said the island of Carriacou, which was struck by the eye of the storm, has been all but cut off, with houses, telecommunications and fuel facilities there flattened.

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

In St Vincent and the Grenadines, one person on the island of Bequia was reported dead from the storm, while a man died in Venezuela’s northeastern coastal state of Sucre when he was swept away by a flooded river, officials there said.

Climate change

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.

Warm ocean temperatures are key for hurricanes, and North Atlantic waters are currently between two and five degrees Fahrenheit (1-3 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

UN climate chief Simon Stiell, who has family on the island of Carriacou, 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, reporting that his parents’ property was damaged.

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

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.

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.)

Hurricane Beryl unleashed powerful winds over the Eastern Caribbean on July 1, downing power lines and ripping roofs from buildings, as scientists argue that climate change likely added to how quickly the unusually fierce, early storm formed.

Beryl struck the southeastern Caribbean at Category 4 strength on the Saffir-Simpson five-point scale, spiraling toward the Caribbean’s Windward Islands and threatening devastating flooding as potentially deadly winds picked up speed.

“This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Take action now to protect your life!” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a post on Monday, urging residents in Grenada, the Grenadine Islands as well as Carriacou Island to shelter in place due to an expected rapid increase in wind force.

Across many islands that dot the Eastern Caribbean, residents boarded up windows, stocked up on food and filled their cars with fuel as the storm drew closer.

The Miami-based hurricane center noted that hurricane-force winds spread out from Beryl’s well-defined eye by up to 40 miles (64 km), with still-dangerous tropical storm force winds extending outward by another 125 miles (201 km).

Beryl’s rapid rise marks an unusually fierce and early start to this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, including the earliest Category 4 storm on record.

Scientists surveyed by Reuters see the powerful hurricane as a harbinger of an unusually active hurricane season made possible by record-high temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Climate change is loading the dice for more intense hurricanes to form,” said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the United States’ National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Andra Garner, a New Jersey-based meteorologist, noted that Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in less than 10 hours.

Leaders in the region sought to prepare locals for the worst, including the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves. He said he was expecting a natural disaster that could continue for days.

“We have to wait this monster out,” he said in an address to the nation.

In the capital of Kingstown, conditions around the main harbor worsened on Monday morning, with some damage to buildings reported, caused by intensifying winds. Video from the city showed waves crashing over a seawall and palm trees along the shore battered by the wind.

Beryl’s maximum sustained wind speed had risen to 150 miles (241 km) per hour by Monday afternoon, with the weather phenomenon located about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Grenada.

Beryl is moving west-northwest at a speed of 20 mph (32 kph), the U.S. hurricane center said, and is forecast to cross many of the central Caribbean’s most populated islands through Wednesday as it barrels toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The core of the hurricane will likely bring “potentially catastrophic wind damage” as it moves through the Windward Islands, with St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada most at risk, according to the center.

In the St. Vincent community of Prospect, damage reports included roofs ripped off of buildings, as well as power cuts in other parts of the island.

A Reuters reporter on Grenada said power was down across the island.

Climate change’s fingerprints

Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to all-time highs, causing more surface water to evaporate, which in turn provides additional fuel for more intense hurricanes with higher wind speeds.

Scientists have already predicted that events like Beryl will grow more likely with climate change, meteorologist Garner said. Her research has shown that as water temperatures rose over the last five decades, it has become more than twice as likely for storms to jump from weak storms to major hurricanes in less than 24 hours.

The hurricane center said hurricane warnings were in effect for St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, and a hurricane watch was issued for Jamaica.

In nearby Tobago, shelters were opened and schools closed on Monday.

“The eastern side of the island got the most battering and the seas remain dangerous. Fisherfolk got sufficient warning and were able to remove their boats from the water,” said Curtis Douglas, President of the All Tobago Fisherfolk Association.

Only limited damage to hotel properties on the island has been reported so far, according to a local hotel and tourism group.

The hurricane is expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) of rain across Barbados and the Windward Islands throughout the day on Monday, with some areas seeing as much as 10 inches (25 cm), especially in the Grenadines, Tobago and Grenada.

In May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic this year, also pointing to unseasonably high ocean temperatures.

Canadian travel blogger “Khanadians” Nauman Khan, in a video posted from his hotel early on Monday morning while on vacation in Barbados, described “really massive waves.”

He said he had been talking with local residents. “Just knowing that people were taking it in their stride, this is a part of life in the West Indies … it gave us some reassurance.”

Bridgetown, Barbados:

Hurricane Beryl strengthened into a top-level category 5 storm late Monday 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 with maximum sustained winds of 160 miles (260 kilometres) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

Early in the day, Grenada’s Carriacou Island took a direct hit from the storm’s “extremely dangerous eyewall,” with sustained winds at upwards of 150 miles, the NHC said.

Nearby islands, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines, also experienced “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge,” according to the NHC.

“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a press conference.

“We are not yet out of the woods,” Mitchell added, noting that while no deaths had been reported so far, he could not say for sure that none had occurred.

Video obtained by AFP from St. George’s in Grenada showed heavy downpours with trees buffeted by gusts.

Later on social media, Mitchell said the government was working to get relief supplies to both Carriacou and the island of Petite Martinique on Tuesday.

“The state of emergency is still in effect. Remain indoors,” he wrote on Facebook.

Rare early strong storm 

Beryl became the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season on Saturday and quickly gathered strength.

Experts say that such a powerful storm forming this early in the Atlantic hurricane season — which runs from early June to late November — is extremely rare.

It 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.

“Only five major (Category 3+) hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July,” hurricane expert Michael Lowry posted on social media platform X.

Barbados appeared to be spared from the worst of the storm but was still hit with high winds and pelting rain, though officials reported no injuries so far.

Barbados seems to have “dodged a bullet,” Minister of Home Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams said in an online video, but nonetheless “gusts are still coming, the storm-force winds are still coming,” he said.

Homes and businesses were flooded in some areas, and fishing boats were damaged in Bridgetown.

The storm prompted the cancellation of classes on Monday in several of the islands, while a meeting this week in Grenada of the Caribbean regional bloc CARICOM was postponed.

Jamaica has issued a hurricane warning, ahead of the storm’s expected arrival on Wednesday. The NHC also warned the Cayman Islands and areas on the Yucatan Peninsula to monitor the storm’s progress.

Extreme weather 

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

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

Extreme weather events including hurricanes have become more frequent and more devastating in recent years as a result of climate change.

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

India captain Rohit Sharma poses with the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup trophy.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The T20 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team is set to fly home aboard a charter flight on Tuesday, July 2 evening after Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she expects the airport here to become operational in the “next six to 12 hours”, ending the shutdown forced by a category 4 hurricane.

Also read: PM Modi speaks to Indian cricket team after T20 World Cup win

The Rohit Sharma-led squad, its support staff, some BCCI officials, and the players’ families have been stranded here for the past two days due to hurricane Beryl. The team won the title on Saturday, June 29, 2024, after defeating South Africa by seven runs in the final.

PM Modi to felicitate Team India

The contingent is expected to leave Bridgetown at 6pm (local time) and land in Delhi on Wednesday, July 2 at 7.45pm (IST), according to a source. The players will be later felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the schedule of that event has not yet been finalised.

Earlier, Mottley gave an update on the situation here.

“I don’t want to speak in advance of it, but I’ve literally been in touch with the airport personnel and they’re doing their last checks now and we want to resume to normal operations as a matter of urgency,” Ms. Mottley, who has been overseeing relief operations on the ground, told PTI.

“There are a number of people who were due to leave yet last night late or today or tomorrow morning. And we want to make sure that we can facilitate those persons, so I would anticipate that within the next six to 12 hours that the airport will be open,” she said.

Life-threatening winds and storm lashed Barbados and nearby islands on Monday. The country, with a population of close to three lakh, has been in a lockdown since Sunday evening.

“(We have) been working to ensure that everyone is safe in Barbados, Barbadians and all of the visitors, of course, who came for cricket World Cup. We were very blessed that the storm did not come on land.

“The hurricane was 80 miles south of us, which limited, the level of damage on shore. But as you can see, we’ve had costal, infrastructure and costal assets have been badly damaged,” Ms. Mottley said.

“It could have been a lot worse, but now is the time to do the recovery and the cleanup.”

The window to leave Bridgetown is a narrow one as Ms. Mottley revealed that “we have another hurricane coming on Wednesday.” She hoped that the Indians, who have stayed put at their hotel since winning the trophy, will be in high spirits despite the lockdown, having ended a title drought of 11 years.

“I’m sure that in spite of the passage of the hurricane, that they would have been in very, very, very good mood and spirit and to win in the manner that they won on Saturday. I think they will be floating on air for a little time,” she quipped.

Hurricane Beryl strengthened into what experts called an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Beryl’s center is expected to pass about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Barbados on Monday morning, said Sabu Best, director of Barbados’ meteorological service.

“This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.”

Beryl was located about 335 miles (570 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbados. It had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph) and was moving west at 21 mph (33 kph). It is a compact storm, with hurricane-force winds extending 15 miles (30 kilometers) from its center.

Beryl is expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It is expected to weaken by midweek, but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.

Beryl had strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday morning, becoming the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.

It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.

Beryl is now the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, besting Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said.

“Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” he said in a phone interview. “Unusual is an understatement. Beryl is already a historic hurricane and it hasn’t struck yet.”

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.

“So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat,” Lowry said of Beryl.

Reecia Marshall, who lives in Grenada, was working a Sunday shift at a local hotel, preparing guests and urging them to stay away from windows as she stored enough food and water for everyone.

She said she was a child when Hurricane Ivan struck, and that she doesn’t fear Beryl.

“I know it’s part of nature. I’m OK with it,” she said. “We just have to live with it.”

Forecasters warned of a life-threatening storm surge of up to 9 feet (3 meters) in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.

Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare for a storm that has broken records and rapidly intensified from a tropical storm with 35 mph (56 kph) winds on Friday to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday.

Warm waters were fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher. Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of the hurricane season in September.

Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Klotzbach.

“Please take this very seriously and prepare yourselves,” said Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “This is a terrible hurricane.”

Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Prime Minister Mia Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights.

“Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.”

Mottley said that all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned the airport would close by nighttime.

Kemar Saffrey, president of a Barbadian group that aims to end homelessness, said in a video posted on social media Saturday night that those without homes tend to think they can ride out storms because they’ve done it before.

“I don’t want that to be the approach that they take,” he said, warning that Beryl is a dangerous storm and urging Barbadians to direct homeless people to a shelter.

Echoing his comments was Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information.

“I need Barbadians at this point to be their brother’s keeper,” he said. “Some people are vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, St. Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said that schools and businesses would remain closed on Monday.

“Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said.

Caribbean leaders were preparing not only for Beryl, but for a cluster of thunderstorms trailing the hurricane that have a 70% chance of becoming a tropical depression.

“Do not let your guard down,” Mottley said.

Beryl is the second named storm in what is forecast to be an above-average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

Bridgetown:

Much of the southeast Caribbean was on alert Sunday as Beryl strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, with forecasters warning it will swiftly become a major storm.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Beryl — currently churning in the Atlantic Ocean about 530 miles (850 kilometers) east of Barbados — was expected to bring “life-threatening winds and storm surge” when it reached the Windward Islands early Monday.

Warning the storm was “getting stronger”, the NHC forecast it would become a “dangerous major hurricane” by the time it hit Caribbean communities.

Barbados, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada were all under hurricane warnings, while tropical storm warnings or watches were in effect for Martinique, Tobago and Dominica, the NHC said in its latest advisory.

Cars were seen lined up at gas stations in the Barbadian capital Bridgetown, while supermarkets and grocery stores were crowded with shoppers buying food, water and other supplies. Some households were already boarding up their properties.

A major hurricane is considered a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds of at least 111 miles per hour (179 kilometers per hour).

Such a powerful storm forming this early in the Atlantic hurricane season — which runs from early June to late November — is extremely rare, experts said.

“Only five major (Category 3+) hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic before the first week of July. Beryl would be the sixth and earliest this far east in the tropical Atlantic,” hurricane expert Michael Lowry posted on social media platform X.

The NHC said that as of 2:00 am (0600 GMT) Sunday, Beryl’s maximum sustained winds had increased to nearly 90 mph with higher gusts.

“Hurricane conditions are expected in the hurricane warning area beginning early on Monday,” it said, warning of heavy rain, flooding and storm surge that could raise water levels as much as seven feet (2.1 meters) above normal.

“Devastating wind damage is expected where the eyewall of Beryl moves through portions of the Windward Islands,” the NHC said, indicating wind speeds in some locations could be 30 percent stronger than those listed in their advisory.

The Saffir-Simpson wind scale designates Category 1 hurricanes as having wind speeds of at least 74 mph, up to Category 5 storms with winds of 157 mph or higher.

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

Extreme weather events including hurricanes have become more frequent and more devastating in recent years as a result of climate change.

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