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Agence France-Presse

Deadly Hurricane Beryl powered towards Mexico on Thursday, after battering Jamaica’s southern coast with devastating winds and sea surge.
The Category 4 storm has left a trail of destruction in its path across the Caribbean, killing at least seven people as it has strengthened rapidly.
Beryl was pulling away from Jamaica late Wednesday and was expected to pass just south of the Cayman Islands overnight, before moving onwards to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
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 are scrambling to prepare, with Beryl expected to bring damaging winds, a dangerous storm surge and heavy rainfall over the Yucatan Peninsula and Belize.
“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, “life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides from heavy rainfall” were still expected overnight, the NHC said.
More than 400,000 people were without power, according to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper, citing a public service company.
The devastating hurricane-force winds, life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves that continue to damage Jamaica are expected in the Cayman Islands overnight, when Beryl passes by while at or near major hurricane intensity.
Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness had declared a curfew from 6am to 6pm 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.
As of Wednesday night, Beryl was packing maximum sustained winds of 215km/h (130mph), said the NHC.
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 per cent 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 35-square kilometre (13.5-square mile) 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.
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 1-3 degrees Celsius (2 and 5 Fahrenheit) 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.


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Natural disasters

Deadly Hurricane Beryl churns towards Mexico after hammering Jamaica

A man looks at breaking waves in the Caribbean Terrace neighbourhood as Hurricane Beryl approaches, in Kingston, Jamaica. Photo: Reuters

A satellite image shows Hurricane Beryl moving towards Jamaica on Wednesday. Image: NOAA via AP

Damaged vehicles in Cumanacoa, Venezuela, on Tuesday after floods brought by Hurricane Beryl. Photo: Reuters

Dial it up to 6? Stronger storms spark calls for new hurricane category

Hurricane Patricia along the western coast of Mexico, as seen from the ISS in 2015. File photo: Scott Kelly via EPA-EFE 

Keaton Beach, Florida after being hit by Hurricane Idalia in 2023. File photo: AP

The aftermath of Typhoon Goni in Albay province, central Philippines in 2020. File photo: AP

Hurricane Beryl kills five, weakens as it heads for Jamaica, causing widespread destruction

Choppy waters are seen as Hurricane Beryl moves south of the island, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters 

Family members begin to repair their home damaged by Hurricane Beryl in Ottley Hall, St Vincent and the Grenadines on Tuesday. Photo: AP

People queue to buy supplies ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Kingston, Jamaica on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Essential supplies are being loaded on to a boat at Grenada Yacht Club in St George’s, Grenada, destined for the island of Carriacou which was hit hard by Hurricane Beryl. Photo: Reuters

Satellite imagery shows Hurricane Beryl over the Caribbean Sea on Monday. Photo: CSU/CIRA/NOAA Handout via Reuters

Hurricane Beryl becomes earliest-ever Category 5 storm as it pummels Caribbean

Fishermen pull a boat damaged by Hurricane Beryl back to the dock at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados on Monday. Photo: AP

Waves crash into a sea wall after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Debris is washed ashore along the seaside of the St Lawrence Gap neighbourhood in Oistens, Barbados on Monday. Photo: Reuters

A woman walks through a debris-filled street in the Hastings neighbourhood of Bridgetown, Barbados on Monday. Photo: Reuters

A tree slumps after being uprooted by Hurricane Beryl in Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines on Monday. Photo: AP

Workers clear drains ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines on Monday. Photo: Reuters

News

World

Americas

The deadly Category 4 storm hit Jamaica in its destructive path through the Caribbean


The Category 4 storm has left a trail of destruction in its path across the Caribbean, killing at least seven people as it has strengthened rapidly.
