Hurricane Fiona hit the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday as a Category 3 storm after devastating Puerto Rico, where most people remained without power or running water and rescuers used heavy equipment to get survivors to a location. sure.
The eye of the storm passed near Grand Turk, the capital island of the tiny British territory, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Storm surge could raise water levels there 5 to 8 feet above normal, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
As of late Tuesday morning, the storm was centered about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north-northwest of that island, with gale-force winds extending up to 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the center.
“Storms are unpredictable,” Prime Minister Washington Misick said in a statement from London, where he was attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. “Therefore, you must take every precaution to ensure her safety.”
Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving northwest at 9 mph (15 kph), according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm is likely to further strengthen to a major hurricane. category 4 as it approaches Bermuda. on Friday.
It is forecast to weaken before reaching far eastern Canada over the weekend.
The wide-ranging storm continued to dump heavy rain on the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where a 58-year-old man died after police said he was swept away by a river in the central mountain town of Comerio.
Another death was related to a power outage: A 70-year-old man was burned to death after trying to fill his generator with gasoline while it was running, authorities said.
Parts of the island had received more than 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain and more was falling on Tuesday.
National Guard Brigade. General Narciso Cruz described the resulting flood as historic.
“There were communities that were flooded by the storm that weren’t flooded by Maria,” he said, referring to the 2017 hurricane that caused nearly 3,000 deaths. “I had never seen anything like it”.
Cruz said 670 people have been rescued in Puerto Rico, including 19 people in a retirement home in the northern mountain town of Cayey that was in danger of collapsing.
“The rivers overflowed and covered the communities,” he said.
Some people were rescued via kayaks and boats, while others were accommodated on the huge bucket of a bulldozer and taken to higher ground.
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