Hurricane Beryl Wreaks Havoc in Caribbean: A Climate Catastrophe

Hurricane Beryl, a powerful Category 4 storm, has caused extensive destruction across the Caribbean, including Jamaica and Haiti. With sustained winds of 145 mph and torrential rainfall, the hurricane has uprooted trees, destroyed homes, and claimed at least seven lives. Scientists attribute its intensity to climate change.

The center of Hurricane Beryl churned menacingly toward Jamaica on Wednesday, after uprooting trees, ripping off roofs and destroying farms as it forged a destructive, water-soaked path across smaller islands in the Caribbean. The death toll from the powerful Category 4 hurricane increased to at least seven, but it is widely expected to rise as communications come back online across drenched islands damaged by flooding and deadly winds.

"Everything is destroyed, there's nothing else in Palm Island," said Katie Rosiak, the general manager of the Palm Island Resort in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, one of the hardest-hit areas in the eastern Caribbean. "We need some help for everybody," she said in a brief phone call, declining to confirm that a hotel employee had been killed.

The loss of life and damage wrought by Beryl underscore the consequences of a warmer Atlantic Ocean, which scientists cite as a telltale sign of human-caused climate change fueling extreme weather that confounds past experience. In the Jamaican capital, Kingston, anxious motorists lined up at gas stations, as others stocked up on essential supplies.

"People are worried and always shopping and buying things," said Andre, a salesperson in a local store, without giving his full name. Jamaicans braced for electricity cuts later on Wednesday, according to a power company official, with roads near the coast already washed out as a steady rain continued to fall.

By midday on Wednesday, the center of the spiraling hurricane was located about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Kingston, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, though its outer rings were already pounding a large portion of the island with a population of nearly 3 million. Beryl is packing maximum sustained winds of 145 miles per hour (233 kph).

"Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides from heavy rainfall are expected over much of Jamaica and southern Haiti through today," the NHC said in a post, adding that dangerous winds and storm surge are expected in both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands through early Thursday. Overnight in Haiti as Beryl's impact grew progressively stronger, residents anxiously awaited its full impact.

"We were not comfortable. We could not sleep normally with the wind, the water. Many people slept in the yard," said Pouchon Jean-Francois, who lives in an improvised camp in Port-au-Prince. Venezuela's vice president was injured as she surveyed an area south of Beryl on Tuesday night, where the Manzanares River in Sucre state burst its banks.

President Nicolas Maduro confirmed the injuries caused by a falling tree to his second-in-command, along with head injuries suffered by senior officials accompanying her, after intense rainfall struck the country's Caribbean coastline. "It could have been a tragedy," Maduro told state television on Tuesday night, adding that three people had died and four were missing in the area, along with more than 8,000 homes damaged by torrential rains, including at least 400 destroyed.

The unusually early hurricane strengthened at a record pace, which scientists argue is almost certainly fueled by climate change. Beryl is the 2024 Atlantic season's first hurricane and the earliest storm on record to reach the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson five-stage scale.

Additional confirmed fatalities so far include at least one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where Union Island has suffered severe destruction over around 90% of buildings, according to the prime minister. In Grenada, the prime minister there described "Armageddon-like" conditions with no power and widespread destruction, while also confirming three deaths.

Beyond near-term impact in Jamaica and Haiti, the NHC warned that Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, dotted with beach resorts popular with tourists, is in Beryl's path as early as Thursday night. In Mexico's top resort city of Cancun, officials said supplies of wooden boards used to protect doors and windows were dwindling as locals and tourists prepared for Beryl's arrival.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)