• Government acts to avert profiteering in wake of disaster
• Officials still trying to reach areas cut off by floods and debris

The government of the Bahamas has sent 900 police and military personnel to the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama hardest hit by Hurricane Dorian, while taking action to stave off any profiteering by private sector rescue missions amid signs of chaos in some of the aid operations.

The destruction caused by the hurricane was still unfolding as a humanitarian and environmental disaster a week after it landed in the northern reaches of the Bahamas as a category 5 tempest.

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.