Category 5 Hurricane Beryl kills 5, hurtles towards Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica: Hurricane Beryl was hurtling towards Jamaica on 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 on 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 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.