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Aid groups struggle to deliver basic supplies due to destruction
Category 2 storm with winds of 110mph threatens US coastline
After hammering the Bahamas and leaving at least 30 dead, Hurricane Dorian began raking the south-east US seaboard, with the eye hitting theNorth Carolina coast on Thursday evening.
The threat to the US remains real but in the Bahamas the storm has left such terrible devastation that the authorities were still struggling to get aid to stricken areas and the death toll is expected to rise, perhaps steeply.
Sarah St George, chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, told the Guardian that the “force and size” of Dorian took everyone by surprise, a situation made worse by the hurricane stalling over the archipelago.
“Grand Bahama is not in good shape at all because 70% of it was under water,” St George said. “On the north side of the island the water was coming up to the second floor of their houses. My assistant Tammy was on the roof of her house for 30 hours hanging on to a coconut tree with her 8-year-old daughter Ariana. Her grandmother lost her grip and slipped off the roof and drowned. There was no way of getting to them. They’ve lost everything.”
In the president’s continuing battle against his own incorrect statement that Alabama was under threat from Hurricane Dorian, which has left at least 23 people dead, he has just now been tweeting what he claims is evidence he knew what he was talking about.
It is not.
Just as I said, Alabama was originally projected to be hit. The Fake News denies it! pic.twitter.com/elJ7ROfm2p
Officials expect the number of dead will continue to rise as large parts of some islands remain inaccessible to rescue crews
The official death toll of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas has risen to 20 people with officials certain the number will continue to rise, the prime minister, Hubert Minnis, announced as he declared a “historic tragedy” on the archipelago.
At a press conference late on Wednesday the prime minister also warned of reports of looting on the Abaco Islands, a northern band of islands in the Bahamas hardest hit by Dorian, which pummelled the area as a slow moving category 5 hurricane over the weekend.
Approximately 396,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders, according to North Carolina’s joint information center spokeswoman Laura Leonard.
On Monday Henry McMaster, the governor of South Carolina, ordered 830,000 to leave areas likely to be effected by the storm. Charleston was among the mandatory evacuation zones, along with parts of counties to the north.
Kari Paul logging off for the evening. Please stay tuned tomorrow for more updates as Dorian reaches the US coast and the picture of effects on the Bahamas become clearer.
Here are the latest updates from this afternoon:
The death toll for Hurricane Dorian climbed to seven, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said on Tuesday night, according to CNN. The death toll, which was at five earlier in the day, has been expected to climb as survivors of the natural disaster face ongoing food and medicine shortages.
Thousands left without shelter and likely to face food and water shortages, say UN, US and local authorities
US officials and counterparts around the world sent out an urgent call for help for the Bahamas after the northernmost islands in the archipelago were pulverized by Hurricane Dorian.
Thousands of residents of Grand Bahama and Abaco islands are without shelter, stranded by flooding and are likely to suffer shortages of food, water and medicine that will worsen without quick action by the international community, according to coordinated messages from the United Nations, the US state department, the US embassy in Nassau and local officials.
Las Vegas is the fastest warming city in the United States. The city’s poorest residents are most at risk in the heat
The Clark county death investigator Jill Roberts vividly recalls the sunny 115F (46C) afternoon last summer when she entered a Las Vegas home with no functional air conditioning. The indoor heat felt even worse than the broiling temperature outside. She climbed up the stairs, through thick, stifling air, landing in a third-story bedroom where the resident had died in sweltering conditions. The room had no fan and the door was shut. It felt as if it couldn’t get any hotter.
“Our elements are unforgiving. Especially on those 115F days, it doesn’t take a lot,” Roberts told the Guardian.“In that situation I’ll go stand in the sun in the 115F heat to do my paperwork as opposed to staying in the house because it’s that hot.”
Hurricane Dorian has pummelled the Bahamas with winds of over 180mph, unleashing massive flooding. Hubert Minnis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, said his country is 'in the midst of a historic tragedy' as at least five people were reported dead. The American Red Cross, which is already at standby in the Bahamas, is also preparing to shelter up to 60,000 Americans as the storm edges closer to the US.
Residents of the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama have described “nightmarish” scenes as the full force of Hurricane Dorian struck the northernmost part of the Bahamas.
As the first person to have died in the storm was reported to be seven-year-old Lachino Mcintosh, who drowned after his family tried to move from their home, witnesses described large-scale flooding and damage as 185mph (300km/h) winds ripped roofs from buildings.
Despite its downgrade, Dorian is still a powerful hurricane and will remain so in the coming days. There’s not much difference between an intense category 4 and a low-end category 5.
Friendly reminder: There is little difference in impact between a #hurricane at the top end of Cat 4 and "low end" of Cat 5. Grand Bahama Island would certainly vouch for that right now. #Dorianpic.twitter.com/g93aDrp02T
Disastrous flooding from the Bahamas - lady who posted this video said: “#HurricaneDorian this was taken in a home by the canal my aunty live by the canal yall I scared” pic.twitter.com/EEZHE3GeCx
NEW: The Hurricane Warning along the east coast of Florida has been extended northward to the Flagler/Volusia County Line. The Hurricane Watch has been extended northward to Altamaha Sound, Georgia. Full advisory on #Dorian is at: https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gBpic.twitter.com/at3bCDs6OQ
The National Hurricane Center expects the hurricane to gradually weaken and has reclassified from a category 5 to a category 4. Maximum winds are at 155 miles per hour, with higher gusts.
Power outages and flooding were reported in the Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rican islands, but no damages
Hurricane Dorian caused limited damage in the northern Caribbean as it left the region and gathered strength late Wednesday, setting its sights on the US mainland as it threatened to grow into a Category 3 storm.
Puerto Rico, which had braced for the worst, seemed to be spared any heavy wind and rain, a huge relief to many on an island where blue tarps still cover some 30,000 homes nearly two years after Hurricane Maria. The island’s 3.2 million inhabitants also depend on an unstable power grid that remains prone to outages since it was destroyed by Maria.
Cold front heads towards east of country and Balearics as Madrid reels from flash-floods
Parts of eastern Spain and the Balearic islands are bracing for heavy rains after Madrid and the surrounding area were battered by violent storms, torrential hail, and flash flooding.
Roads around the Spanish capital were flooded, flights diverted from Barajas airport and underground services affected on Monday night as an isolated depression at high levels moved across the centre of the Iberian peninsula.
But while temperatures in Britain remained just the right side of uncomfortably hot, much of Europe experienced serious extremes, in the continent’s warmest August on record. And far from being confined to the area around the Mediterranean, even Scandinavia had worryingly hot weather.
Dead include two children after thunderstorm in trekking location in the Tatra mountains
At least five people, including two children, have died and more than 100 have been injured during a sudden thunderstorm in Poland and Slovakia’s Tatra mountains, according to rescuers.
Most of the victims were in Poland, where lightning struck a metal cross atop Mount Giewont as well as a metal chain near the summit, according to local media. The four dead in Poland included two children, a spokeswoman for the Polish air ambulance service, Kinga Czerwinska, told the news broadcaster TVN24. One person died in Slovakia.
Thousands of flights cancelled as natural dam collapses north of Wenzhou
A powerful typhoon left at least 30 people dead in China, after a landslide backed up a river that broke through debris and inundated homes, state media reported on Sunday.
Another 20 people remained missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said, and more than a million people were evacuated, state broadcaster CCTV has reported.
From walking the dog at midnight to a dip in the canal, I tested the heatwave plan as the city reached 42.6C. Here’s how it went
Last week, as Paris faced down its hottest day since records began, the city authorities declared their readiness. Since the notorious heatwave of 2003 that killed thousands across France, the capital has put in place a heat strategy: cooling areas, a checking system for vulnerable people, shady parks kept open all night.
Could these strategies actually work against a predicted record temperature of 42C (107.6F)? A study released this week shows that the world has never warmed faster than now. By 2050, the average temperature in the hottest month in Paris will rise by six degrees. This heatwave might be the new normal.