Hurricane Dorian: Bahamas fears ‘staggering storm death toll with thousands missing’

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David Gardner6 September 2019

The Bahamas is facing a “staggering” death toll from Hurricane Dorian with “hundreds, up to thousands” of people still missing, the country’s leaders revealed today.

The confirmed fatalities from the monster storm, standing this morning at 30, will be dwarfed by the true number of lives lost, health minister Duane Sands said.

“Make no bones about it, it is going to be significantly higher than that. The public needs to prepare for unimaginable information about the death toll and the human suffering," he said.

“Let me say that I believe the number will be staggering. I have never lived through anything like this and I don’t want to live through anything like this again.”

Extensive damage and destruction is seen in an area called "The Mud" at Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island
AP

Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ tourism ministry, told CNN: “Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing.”

Many of them are children, including six-year-old Adrian Johnson, blown from a roof where he had sought shelter. “I guess within seconds the gusts of the wind blew the little boy off the roof into the water,” his older brother Richard said. “Given the circumstances, I’m not that hopeful.”

Rescue agencies are sending 200 body bags and morticians to the Abaco Islands, which were worst-hit by the category five storm that stalled over the region from Sunday to Tuesday. Bodies are said to be piled up and militias have been formed to prevent widespread looting.

Grand Bahama is also reported to be virtually uninhabitable following the storm. The Red Cross fears that nearly half of the homes on both islands — totalling about 13,000 — were either destroyed or severely damaged.

By this morning, the hurricane had weakened to a category 1 as it moved up the coast of South and North Carolina in the US. Winds have dropped from a record 185 mph on Sunday to 90mph, but officials said the strong gusts and rain could still cause “potentially life-threatening” flash floods.

The storm-related death count in the US stands at five.

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