Hurricane Dorian: Bahamas Abaco Islands 'decimated'

Hurricane Dorian has killed at least seven people in the Bahamas, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said at a press conference on Tuesday evening.

Dorian has been downgraded to a still-dangerous Category 2, and moved away from Grand Bahama island after wreaking havoc on the archipelago. The storm dumped rain, flooded homes and prompted desperate calls for help from stranded people.

Minnis told reporters that Dorian was "one of the greatest national crises in our country's history."

"We can expect more deaths to be recorded, this is just preliminary information," the prime minister said.

The storm brought maximum sustained winds of almost 300 kilometers per hour (165 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 220 mph, as it made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on Sunday, the most dangerous on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

As the giant storm finally moved away from the Bahamas, authorities are now able to assess the scale of the damage and more accounts of the suffering have begun to emerge.

Abaco 'decimated'

Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief organization and flew over the worst-hit area, the Abaco Islands, described the scene as "total devastation."

"It's decimated, apocalyptic," Head-Rigby said, "It's not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again."

US broadcaster CNN's aerial footage of Great Abaco Island showed the vast devastation that Dorian delivered there. Hundreds of homes were missing their roofs, cars were overturned, and widespread flooding and debris was strewn all over.

"Parts of Abaco are decimated. There's severe flooding, there's severe damage to homes, businesses, other buildings and infrastructure," Minnis said.

Prime Minister Minnis said his country’s residents had endured "hours and days of horror, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones."

Florida and the Carolinas on alert

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm's core "is moving nearly parallel to, but offshore of, the east coast of central Florida." 

Dorian's center is forecast to then move near or over the coast of South and North Carolina Thursday through Friday morning, the NHC said.

The governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have ordered mandatory evacuations of their states' coastal areas as of noon Monday. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp told reporters Monday in ocean-side Savannah: "This is not one to play with."

rs,es,jcg/msh (AP, AFP)

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