Hurricane Irma will “devastate” either Florida or neighbouring states, the head of the US federal emergency agency, Brock Long, has said. Long said parts of Florida would be without power for days, and more than one hundred thousand people may need shelter.
Meanwhile there are reports of serious looting on the hurricane-hit Caribbean island of Saint Martin. Hurricane Irma has left a trail of destruction in the Caribbean, affecting an estimated one-point-two million people, with the Red Cross saying that the affected could sharply rise to twenty-six million.
It has been downgraded to a category four storm, but officials warn that it remains “extremely dangerous”. The US National Weather Service says that Irma was expected to bring wind speeds of around two hundred and kilometers per hour over the weekend.
Some five hundred thousand people have been told to leave south Florida with Irma due on Sunday. The death toll rose continued to rise today in the Caribbean, where at least nineteen people were killed in the wake of the deadly storm.
Join our twitter community :
