Hurricane Beryl rips through Caribbean

Hurricane Beryl, seen here making landfall in Barbados, is the first dangerous hurricane of the season. Fueled by record warm waters, it strengthened into a top-level Category 5 storm late on Monday — the earliest Category 5 storm in the Atlantic on record, according to the National Hurricane Center in the US and the World Meteorological Organization. It has since weakened to a Category 4.

Barbados appeared to have been spared the worst of the storm but was still hit with high winds and pelting rain. The storm has developed into a "potentially catastrophic" hurricane with wind speeds of up to 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), the National Hurricane Center said Tuesday evening.

In just over 24 hours, Beryl developed from a tropical storm on Sunday into a Category 5 hurricane. Authorities have declared a state of emergency in Tobago, the smaller of the two islands that make up Trinidad and Tobago (seen above), with schools ordered closed and flights canceled.

Already as a Category 4 hurricane, Beryl lay waste to the port of Bridgetown on Barbados. Grenada's Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said the island of Carriacou was "flattened" in half an hour, with water, food and baby formula now in short supply. An emergency team was expected to arrive in Carriacou on Tuesday morning.

In Venezuela's northern state of Sucre, Beryl brought heavy rain and flooding. Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, was injured after a gust of wind knocked down tree during her visit to the disaster area. "She was hit hard, but she is conscious," President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech to supporters.

Union Island, one of the southernmost islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was hit especially hard. Around 90% of the island's homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, said Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Tuesday, who has promised to rebuild. The full extent of the storm damage is still unknown.

These residents of Union Island were able to find refuge in Kingstown, on the northern island of St. Vincent. But the situation remains tense: throughout the southeast Caribbean, streets are littered with trees and other debris. Electricity was disrupted everywhere on Tuesday, and communication between the islands remains difficult.

As the cleanup begins on Barbados, the storm continues to move. Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane as it continues its path across the Caribbean. According to forecasts, it will pass just south of Jamaica and reach Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula by Thursday, where it could hit the popular beach resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

Ahead of the storm in Kingston, Jamaica, these shoppers rushed to stock up on essential supplies. "I urge all Jamaicans to stock up on food, batteries, candles, and water," said Prime Minister Andrew Holness on X. The hurricane is expected to hit the island on Wednesday, he added, declaring a state of emergency and 12-hour curfew from 6 a.m. local time.

In Cancun, Mexico, meanwhile, some stores were already almost completely cleared out of non-perishable food.

Weather experts are already talking about a historic hurricane season. Beryl has already broken several records, including marking the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the Atlantic in June, said hurricane researcher Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University.

In addition to the high water temperatures in the Atlantic, the hurricane season could be fueled by the expected onset of the climate phenomenon La Nina, a phase of cooler water in the Pacific. Climate change also plays a role: global warming increases the likelihood of more destructive storms.