GENEVA:
Hurricane Dorian has caused “extensive damage” across
the Bahamas, the Red Cross said on Monday, warning that as many as 13,000 houses may have been severely damaged or destroyed. “We don’t yet have a complete picture of what has happened,” Sune Bulow, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Emergency Operation Centre in
Geneva, said in a statement.
“But it is clear that Hurricane Dorian has had a catastrophic impact,” he said, adding that “we anticipate extensive shelter needs, alongside the need for short-term economic support, as well as for clean water and health assistance”. Hurricane Dorian battered the Bahamas with ferocious wind and rain on Sunday, the monstrous Category 5 storm wrecking towns and homes as it churned on an
uncertain path toward the
US coast where hundreds of thousands were ordered to evacuate. There was no immediate word on casualties in the low-lying islands. But IFRC said that up to 13,000 houses may have been severely impacted. IFRC said it had released 250,000 Swiss francs ($252,000) from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to bolster the initial response to the crisis, and to provide some 500 families with emergency shelter assistance.
Packing sustained winds of 295 kilometre per hour, Dorian crashed onshore in the Abacos Islands, in the northwest of the Bahamas, as the strongest storm ever to hit the Caribbean chain.