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These shocking aerial images reveal the full extent of Dorian's trail of destruction after the Category 5 hurricane left parts of the Bahamas 'decimated', with 70,000 needing 'life-saving assistance' and at least 30 dead. 

The satellite pictures from before and after the storm show how huge parts of the island chain were left flattened in what Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said was 'one of the greatest national crises in our country's history'.

Minnis said some areas had been 'decimated' after the hurricane struck the island chain on Sunday and stalled over Abaco and Grand Bahama for the following two days as 185mph winds and torrential rains ravaged countless communities.  

A massive international relief effort ramped up on Thursday as the extent of the damage wrought by Dorian comes into focus through satellite images and harrowing accounts from survivors. 

Head of a relief group helping in Abacos, Lia Head-Rigby, called the situation 'apocalyptic', adding: 'It's total devastation. It's decimated.' 

Alicia Cook, who was evacuated, said: 'There's nothing left in most of Marsh Harbour. People are starting to panic: pillaging, looting, it's just no way everyone's going to get out.'  

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A massive international relief effort kicked off on Thursday as the extent of the damage wrought by Dorian comes into focus through satellite images, like the one above from downtown Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco island

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Dorian struck the island chain as a catastrophic Category 5 storm on Sunday and stalled over Abaco and Grand Bahama for the following two days as 185mph winds and torrential rains ravaged countless communities. Pictured is a close up of Green Turtle Cay before and after the hurricane

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The devastation wrought by Dorian came into focus Thursday as the passing of the storm revealed a muddy, debris-strewn landscape of smashed and flooded-out homes on Abaco and Grand Bahama islands. Marinas and homes on Marsh Harbour are pictured before and after 

'All the main buildings, gone. It's gone. Everything is gone,' Robert Cornea, who has lived in Abaco for more than 50 years with his wife Phyllis, told CBS News. 

The couple have been homeless since Sunday.  

'Take a picture of me because it's all I have left, what you see me in,' Phyllis Cornea said from the wreckage of her home. 'I've been in this four days.'

On Wednesday United Nations humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said around 70,000 people 'are in immediate need of life-saving assistance', adding that the most urgent needs are water, food, shelter and accommodation. 

'This is our Katrina moment,' Bahamian Health Minister Duane Sands said Thursday. 

As the death toll rose to 30, Sands said the official count 'could be staggering'.  

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Dorian left 'generational devastation' and asked for prayers for the thousands of families affected.   

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The Bahamian government sent hundreds of police officers and marines into the stricken islands, along with doctors, nurses and other health care workers, in an effort to reach drenched and stunned victims and take the full measure of the disaster. Green Turtle Cay before and after the hurricane is pictured 

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The U.S. Coast Guard, Britain’s Royal Navy and relief organizations including the United Nations and the Red Cross joined the burgeoning effort to rush food and medicine to survivors and lift the most desperate people to safety by helicopter. The U.S. government also dispatched urban search-and-rescue teams. Northwestern Marsh Harbour is pictured before and after

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The storm pounded the Bahamas with Category 5 winds up to 185 mph (295 kph) and torrential rains, swamping neighborhoods in brown floodwaters and destroying or severely damaging, by one estimate, nearly half the homes in Abaco and Grand Bahama, which have 70,000 residents and are known for their marinas, golf courses and all-inclusive resorts. Northern Marsh Harbour is pictured before and after

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President Donald Trump has also offered his condolences and said the United States will provide all appropriate support to the people of the Bahamas during the Bahamian government's response to Hurricane Dorian. Marsh Harbour is pictured before and after

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An unknown number of people were trapped in their homes waiting for help as the storm passed and for days afterward. Leonard Thompson international airport pictured before and after the storm 

Half of the homes in the Bahamas were destroyed or severely damaged, racking up a total of $7billion in insured and uninsured property losses, according to a Thursday estimate from the catastrophe modelers Karen Clark & Co.  

The Bahamian government sent hundreds of police and marines into the stricken islands, along with doctors, nurses and other health care workers. 

The US Coast Guard, Britain's Royal Navy and relief organizations including the UN and the Red Cross joined the burgeoning effort to rush food and medicine to survivors and lift the most desperate people to safety by helicopter. 

UN chief Lowcock said he told Prime Minister Hubert Minnis that he was releasing $1 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund immediately to deal with these priorities as well as for medical supplies and services for Grand Bahama. 

He said the United Nations began gathering data Wednesday with officials in the region 'so we really understand where the most vulnerable people are and what their precise needs are.'

President Donald Trump has also offered his condolences and said the United States will provide all appropriate support to the people of the Bahamas during the Bahamian government's response to Hurricane Dorian.   

Aliana Alexis, of Haiti, stands in the wreckage of her home in a shantytown called The Mudd at Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island on Thursday

On Wednesday United Nations humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said around 70,000 people 'are in immediate need of life-saving assistance', adding that the most urgent needs are water, food, shelter and accommodation

Half of the homes in the Bahamas were destroyed or severely damaged, racking up a total of $7billion in insured and uninsured property losses, according to a Thursday estimate from the catastrophe modelers Karen Clark & Co

Catastrophic flooding in community of Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island is seen from above on Thursday

Rescue workers recover the body of a victim of Hurricane Dorian in Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island, on Thursday

Boats are seen strewn across Marsh Harbour on Grand Abaco Island on Thursday

A helicopter is seen taking off from Marsh Harbour Healthcare Center as rescue crews continue to search for survivors

Officials are working to evacuate people to the capital in Nassau, but their efforts have been complicated by flooded runways at regional airports like the one above in Marsh Harbour

An unknown number of people were trapped in their homes waiting for help as the storm passed and for days afterward. 

'Ain't nobody come to get them,' Cardot Ked, a 43-year-old carpenter from Haiti who has lived 25 years in Abaco, told AP. 'If we could get to the next island, that's the best thing we can do.'

Sylvia Cottis, 89, was inside her home at an Abaco beach club when the winds blew out the supposedly hurricane-proof windows, turning the glass into razor-sharp shrapnel that opened a wide gash on her knee.

For the next five days, Cottis and her caretaker, 58-year-old Kathryn Cartwright, were trapped in the house waiting for help as conditions worsened. 

Cottis spent the days sitting in her wheelchair and the nights sleeping in a metal lawn lounger, surrounded by wet belongings and sewage from a septic tank that overflowed with floodwater and swamped her house.  

The two women heard helicopters overhead and cars driving past, but the weather and massive flooding prevented any assistance. 

Cartwright stayed with Cottis despite being worried about her own son and daughter, whom and had not heard from since the storm hit. 

'I can't leave her here too long,' Cartwright told AP in a tearful interview from the wrecked home.   

Help finally came on Wednesday when her neighbor Ben Allen and his friend pried open the jammed front door with a screwdriver to check on Cottis and Cartwright. 

By then, the gash on Cottis' leg had become infected and swollen. 

Allen, a 40-year-old construction worker and maintenance man, loaded Cottis into his minivan and took her to get medical attention.  

Sissel Mosvold, left, embraces a volunteer who helped rescue her mother from her home, flooded by the waters of Hurricane Dorian, in the outskirts of Freeport, Bahamas. Virginia Mosvold, right, is brought down from a truck by volunteers

A survivor walks through flooded land leaving behind abandoned cars in Freeport on Grand Bahama Island

The Bahamas' usual idyllic beach fronts and white painted buildings - like the hotel above - were devastated by the hurricane

A family, including four children, wait for relief supplies to arrive in Great Abaco as the Bahamas were battered by Dorian

People wait for relief supplies to arrive at Treasure Cay Airport following Hurricane Dorian

They watched in horror as the minivan sped past broken cell towers, snapped power lines, trees stripped of their leaves, 30- to 40-foot boats thrown on top of buildings and metal shutters ripped off their frames and hurled into stores.

'Abaco is no more,' Allen told AP. Exactly a week ago, it was 'the most beautiful place you wanted to be', he said.

During the ride, Cartwright pointed out businesses she knew and homes that once belonged to her friends. Then she fell silent. 'Oh, my father, look at everything.'

Cartwright, still preoccupied with her children, said: 'I just want to see my son tonight.'

At that moment, the van drove through a pool of water, and a car coming the opposite way slowed down on the two-lane road. All of a sudden, Cartwright screamed: 'That's my son! That's my son!'

She hustled out of the car and swept the 29-year-old marine welder and father of two into her arms as she cried. She had not known until that moment if he was alive. 

Her son, Carlton Nixon, informed her that 'the babies are okay', but that his daughter needed to be taken off of Abaco. 

As they hugged and talked, cars started piling up on both sides and drivers began to honk. Cartwright and her son made plans to see each other later and went their separate ways.

The beat-up van continued to Marsh Harbour Healthcare Center, where Cottis was taken in for treatment. 

Several hundred people are now temporarily living at the center, the island's main hospital. 

Small children played outside amid coils of downed power lines while homeless families rested on the hospital's lawn.

Inside, people crammed into the entrances, the hallways, the waiting room. Small children slept sprawled out on sheets and unfurled sleeping bags while toddlers in diapers stood in a portable playpen in the hospital's driveway.

A woman and her children sleep in the hallway of the Marsh Harbour Medical Clinic in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian

Patients and their families crowd the entrance of the Marsh Harbour Medical Clinic in the Great Abaco island town of Marsh Harbour

Refuse including medical waste is seen near the entrance of the Marsh Harbour Medical Clinic where hundreds took shelter

The death toll climbed to 30 on Thursday as search and rescue teams fanned out across affected communities after floodwaters receded and the weather cleared.  

The number of fatalities was expected to continue its ascent as long stretches have yet to be explored. 

AP journalists observed a body tangled underneath a tree branch by twisted sheets of metal at The Mudd, a shantytown in Great Abaco island that was home to several thousand Haitian migrants before Dorian razed it. 

Residents have reported seeing at least eight other bodies in the area.  

Among those who lost a loved one in The Mudd was Benatace Pierre-Louis, 57, who collects and sells scrap metal. He said his sister-in-law died as she tried to escape the storm but got hit by plywood.

'They gone, but we can't do nothing,' he said, adding that Bahamian immigration officials visited The Mudd ahead of Dorian and told people to go to shelters for their safety.  

Adrian Farrington said he is holding onto hope that his son will be found alive after the five-year-old was swept off a roof by surging floodwaters. 

'I still can see my son getting dragged across the roof reaching up,' Farrington told CBS News. 

'If he be rescued, praise the lord. But for the search, what I saw, when I lose him, anything could happen. You had sharks swimming in the water. Anything can happen.' 

Displaced Haitian nationals take refuge on the grounds of the Government complex in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian

Men are seen recovering items a pile of debris where a home once stood in Marsh Harbour

Hundreds of cars were smashed to pieces by the Category 4 Hurricane which flattened entire communities and took the lives of at least 30 people

A relief effort is now underway in the Bahamas following the deaths of at least 30 people and the devastation of whole communities

A home in Freeport barely remains standing after the roof was torn off and it was pelted by debris 

Officials are working to evacuate people to the capital in Nassau, but their efforts have been complicated by flooded runways at Grand Bahama International Airport.   

Londa Sawyer stepped off a helicopter with her two children and two dogs on Wednesday after being rescued from Marsh Harbour, where she said 'it looks like a bomb hit.'

She said her home was completely flooded and that she and her family fled to a friend's home where the water came up past the second floor, carrying them up to within a few feet of the ceiling. She said she and her children and the dogs were floating on a mattress for about half an hour until the water started receding.

Sawyer said there was some looting but she didn't witness any violence.    

Aerial footage showed scenes of catastrophic damage, with hundreds of homes missing roofs, cars submerged or overturned, widespread flooding and boats reduced to matchwood. 

Bahamas residents 'endured hours and days of horror, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones,' Minnis said.   

After it left the Bahamas, Dorian regained strength as it pushed up the southeastern US coast as a Category 3 hurricane, lashing the Carolinas with tropical storm-force winds after millions of people were warned to clear out. 

By Thursday morning, Dorian had still-dangerous 115 mph wind and was scraping the Carolinas with the potential for over a foot of rain in some spots by Friday. 

Forecasters warned of a life-threatening storm surge along the coasts. The storm was centered about 70 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, moving north at 8 mph.

The US mainland recorded its first death in connection with the hurricane, that of an 85-year-old man in North Carolina who fell off a ladder while preparing his home for the storm. Dorian was also blamed for one death in Puerto Rico.

The satellite photo above shows Dorian's position over the Carolinas at noon on Thursday

Boats in the usually-pristine Marsh Harbour were forced into each other and crashed as the winds attacked the Bahamas

Cars are seen stuck under several feet of debris tossed about by the hurricane winds and rain 

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis called Dorian 'one of the greatest national crises in our country's history'