Powerful Hurricane Beryl threatens lives in Caribbean as it becomes Category 3 storm
Powerful storm Hurricane Beryl is set to strike several Caribbean islands late on Sunday with residents urged to take shelter.
The first named hurricane of the year is growing in strength and is set to hit Barbados where the T20 Cricket World Cup had been taking place.
St Lucia, Grenada, Martinique, Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines are also set to be impacted.
Beryl was located about 420 miles east-southeast of Barbados at Sunday lunchtime and was a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph.
It is forecast to strengthen into a powerful Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean
Car line up at a gas station before hurricane Beryl lands in Bridgetown, Barbados (AFP via Getty Images)
Fans are rushing to get home after the Cricket World Cup in Barbados, where India won the final (AP)
It could strike the Central American islands with life threatening ferocity.
"This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands," warned the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
"[Beryl is] forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge — as an extremely dangerous hurricane."
Beryl is expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica.
It is expected to weaken by mid-week but then remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.
Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge of up to 3m in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with up to 15cm of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.
"We have to remain vigilant," Barbadian prime minister Mia Mottley said in a public address late Saturday. "We do not want to put anybody's life at risk."
Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday's Twenty20 World Cup final with Ms Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many changing flights.
"Some of them have never gone through a storm before," she said. "We have plans to take care of them."
Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933.
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