BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: Hurricane Beryl was Tuesday hurtling towards Jamaica as it strengthened into a record top-level Category 5 storm after sweeping across several islands in the southeastern Caribbean.

Dumping heavy rain and unleashing devastating winds, Beryl was described as a “potentially catastrophic” storm by the US National Hurricane Center (NHC). One person was killed in the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the country’s government said, while officials elsewhere reported widespread destruction.

Beryl is the earliest Category 5 storm in the Atlantic on record, according to the NHC and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 165 miles (265 kilometers) per hour as it headed towards Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the NHC said in its latest update from 0900 GMT. “The center of Beryl will move quickly across the southeastern and central Caribbean Sea today and is forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday,” said the NHC.

NHC forecasts Beryl will start “weakening” later Tuesday, but warned it “is still expected to be near major hurricane intensity”. 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, the NHC said.

Nearby islands, including Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, also experienced “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge,” it said. Beryl “has left in its wake immense destruction, pain and suffering,” Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said late Monday. “Sadly there has been reported... that one person died. There may well be more fatalities, we are not yet sure,” said Gonsalves in a video published on Facebook.

He said that “90 percent of the houses have been severely damaged or destroyed” on one of the islands, where the airport’s roof was also ripped off. Further south in Grenada, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said “in half an hour, Carriacou (island) was flattened.” “We are not yet out of the woods,” Mitchell told a press conference, 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 Grenada’s capital St George showed heavy downpours with trees buffeted by gusts.

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. The WMO said that Beryl “sets an alarming precedent for what is expected to be a very active hurricane season”.

“Hurricane Beryl poses a major threat to communities in the Caribbean after intensifying at an explosive rate,” WMO said in a situation report. Barbados appeared to have been spared the worst of the storm but was still hit with high winds and pelting rain, although officials reported no injuries so far. 

The country “dodged a bullet”, Interior Minister Wilfred Abrahams said in an online video, but nonetheless “gusts are still coming, the storm-force winds are still coming.”

Homes and businesses were flooded in some areas and fishing boats were damaged in the capital 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.

A tropical storm warning was also issued for the south coast of the Dominican Republic, where authorities placed two provinces on red alert. 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. — AFP