Washington — Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis on Friday raised the interim death toll from the destroyer’s detour of Hurricane Dorian by the archipelago last weekend, local media reported.” The loss of life we are experiencing is catastrophic and devastating,” Minnis said in a statement, acknowledging that many people are still missing and that the death toll can increase significantly.
Of the 43 deaths, 35 occurred in the Abalco Islands and 8 in Grand Bahama, the most affected by the Dorian Pass through the archipelago. Dorian hit these islands in the northern Bahamas last weekend as a Category 5 hurricane – the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale – with maximum sustained winds of up to 295 kilometers per hour. In an unusual phenomenon for such storms, Dorian stood virtually motionless over these Caribbean islands for about 36 hours, generating great chaos and destruction.
According to reports from local Bahamian media, hundreds of hurricane survivors crowd into the air and sea terminals of these islands trying to evacuate in the direction of Nassau, the country’s capital. The Abalco Islands and Grand Bahama have been left at the mercy of humanitarian aid to obtain food, water and light generators.
U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said on Wednesday that the Bahamas has “never seen anything of this scale” in defining Dorian’s impact on the Caribbean country as “huge.”
Dorian, for his part, who was threatening the southern states of the United States, on Friday made land fall in North Carolina weakened to category 1, with no fatalities or major damage reported. The hurricane is now advancing towards Nova Scotia( Canada) with maximum sustained winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour. According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), Dorian will cross Nova Scotia on Saturday afternoon.
