Hurricane Irma: the Caribbean on alert

Photo AFP

AFP

Monday, 4 September 2017, 15:35

UPDATE
Monday, 4 September 2017, 15:39

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SAN JUAN | hurricane Irma approaches the eastern Caribbean, where several islands such as Puerto Rico and the lesser Antilles have been placed in a state of alert, announced Monday the u.s. center monitoring hurricane (NHC).

Irma, a category 3 hurricane on a scale of 5, with winds that reached 195 km/h, should continue to strengthen “over the next two days,” said the NHC.

Some forecasters expect it to reach a strength of category 4, the maximum power of hurricane Harvey, which has ravaged some parts of the coast of texas and Louisiana.

Irma is expected to reach the north of Puerto Rico, a u.s. territory, 8: 00 a.m. Wednesday, causing in its wake a rise in the level of the sea up to 3 meters above normal, up to 25 centimetres of precipitation and of the “large destructive waves”.

The governor Ricardo Rossello Nevares has activated the national guard and announced the opening of shelters to accommodate up to 62 000 people.

A us carrier with a field hospital and dozens of devices capable of undertaking rescue missions, and supply, has been placed as a precaution in the region, ” said Alejandro de la Campa division Caribbean of the federal Agency of emergency situations.

The trajectory of Irma is still uncertain, but several projections place it on its passage to Haiti, the dominican Republic and Cuba before heading north towards Florida, and then, possibly, the East coast of the United States.

For the time being, alerts, hurricane are in place for the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Saint-Barthélemy, Saba, and Saint Eustatius, where the passage of Irma is expected within 36 hours.

In Guadeloupe, where an alert vigilance was triggered, the population has been invited by the prefecture to “stay tuned” and “keep abreast” of the evolution of the phenomenon. The locals have started to make provisions, and in many of the major surfaces, the rays of water bottles are empty.

The start of classes was postponed to Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélémy. The prefectures of the islands concerned have issued press releases indicating the “instructions to the population” in the event of a cyclone and “the list of cyclone shelters”.