Hurricane Beryl has neared Jamaica as a powerful category four storm, after flattening homes on smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean, killing at least seven people and creating "Armageddon-like" conditions on Grenada.
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At about 5am EDT, the hurricane was about 300km east-southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, according to the US National Hurricane Centre, packing maximum sustained winds of 230 km/h.
"Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands Wednesday night and Thursday," the hurricane centre said.
Hurricane conditions are expected to reach the coast of Jamaica about midday local time, with tropical storm-strength winds beginning in the late morning, making outside preparations difficult or dangerous, it said.
In the capital, Kingston, cars lined up at gas stations as people filled additional containers with fuel.
Residents stocked up on water and other essential supplies and boarded up shops and houses.
The unusually early hurricane, whose rapid strengthening scientists said was likely fuelled 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.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on state television on Tuesday night that three people had died and four were missing in Sucre state in the extreme east of the country, with more than 8,000 homes affected by torrential rains. At least 400 were destroyed.
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 per cent of homes had been "severely damaged or destroyed," he said.
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, calling the situation "Armageddon-like".
"There is no power. There is almost complete destruction of homes and buildings," he said.
Mitchell confirmed three fatalities had been reported.
The Miami-based US hurricane Centre estimates the massive weather system is moving toward the west-northwest at a speed of 35 km/h.
In Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, north of St Vincent, video shared on social media showed flooded streets and locals attempting to clear away debris.
In addition to Haiti's southern coast, the hurricane centre also declared a hurricane watch for Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, dotted with beach resorts popular with tourists.
Ahead of the storm's approach expected on Thursday night, Mexico's defence 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 4900 troops on guard on the peninsula.
In resort town of Cancun, supplies of the wooden boards used to protect shop fronts were dwindling as residents prepared for Beryl's arrival.
Beryl jumped from a category one to a category four 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 said.
Australian Associated Press
