At least one person has died after Hurricane Beryl battered several islands in the Caribbean, completely flattening the island of Carriacou in Grenada.

Beryl strengthened to Category 5 status late on Monday after its devastating winds ripped doors, windows and roofs off homes and left thousands without power across the southeastern Caribbean.

The super storm was still swiping the southeast Caribbean early on Tuesday with winds reaching 165mph, on a track heading just south of Jamaica and toward Mexico‘s Yucatan Peninsula by late Thursday, latest radar has revealed.

A hurricane warning remains in effect for Jamaica, and a tropical storm warning for the southern coast of Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) in Miami said.

Fluctuations in strength, and later a significant weakening, were forecast as the storm pushes further into the Caribbean in the coming days. 

Beryl made landfall on Carriacou on Monday as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, then late in the day the NHC said its winds had increased to Category 5 strength. 

It reached Category 5 strength late on Monday and intensified further early on Tuesday morning to 165 mph winds.

Beryl was about 445 miles east-southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday morning and was moving west-northwest at 22 mph.

Fluctuations were likely but Beryl was expected to stay near major hurricane intensity as it moved into the central Caribbean and passed near Jamaica on Wednesday, according to forecasters at the NHC.

After that, significant weakening was expected.

On Monday afternoon, officials received ‘reports of devastation’ from Carriacou and surrounding islands, said Terence Walters, Grenada’s national disaster coordinator. 

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said one person had died and he could not yet say if there were other fatalities because authorities had not been able to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, where there were initial reports of major damage but communications were largely down.

‘We do hope there aren’t any other fatalities or any injuries,’ he said.

‘But bear in mind the challenge we have in Carriacou and Petite Martinique.’ 

Mitchell added that the government will send people first thing on Tuesday morning to evaluate the situation on the islands.

Mitchell said he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it’s safe, noting there has been an ‘extensive’ storm surge.

Grenada officials had to evacuate patients to a lower floor after hospital roof was damaged, he said.

‘There is the likelihood of even greater damage,’ he told reporters. ‘We have no choice but to continue to pray.’

Thousands were left without power after the historic super storm ripped through several islands on Monday.

Streets from St Lucia island south to Grenada were strewn with shoes, trees, downed power lines and other debris.

Banana trees were snapped in half and cows lay dead in green pastures with homes made of tin and plywood tilting precariously nearby.

‘Right now, I’m real heartbroken,’ said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed her damaged shop in the Barbadian capital of Bridgetown that was filled with sand and water.

(dailymail.co.uk)