Hurricane Beryl devastates Caribbean islands

Hurricane Beryl has ripped across the Caribbean with winds of 150mph tearing roofs from buildings, uprooting trees and devastating the islands in its path.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in Jamaica are without power after the storm hit overnight, and residents in coastal and island countries already struck by the storm are looking at rebuilding their lives from the debris.

Seven people are known to have been killed across Grenada and St Vincent and thousands left homeless after the category five storm made landfall on Tuesday.

Beryl has now weakened to a category three storm, and is rolling towards the Cayman Islands and southern Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) reports.

It is expected to reach Cancún by Friday morning before crossing the Gulf of Mexico and reaching Texas early next week.

Rubbish and debris piled high on a beach on the island of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, after the storm had passed.

Streets were left flooded and cars wrecked in Cumanacoa, Venezuela, more than 20km from the coast.

The storm devastated Cumanacoa, where the strong winds threw cars into buildings and upended vehicles.

Drone footage showed the scale of the damage on Petite Martinique, Grenada, where homes were left without roofs and windows.

Satellite imagery taken on Wednesday shows Hurricane Beryl covering Jamaica and parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its arms stretch north and east past Cuba and south to Venezuela and Colombia.

The storm wrecked homes and businesses in the Hastings neighbourhood of Bridgetown, Barbados, on Monday.

Images shared by the Barbados Government Information Service showed the damage to fishing vessels as fishermen tried to save their fleet.

Pictures of Hurricane Beryl from the International Space Station show the size of the storm spanning the southern Caribbean.

There are “hardly any buildings left standing” on Union Island, one resident told the BBC.

Homes were ripped apart by the storm on the Grenadine island of Carriacou.

On St Lucia, party boat The Pearl, a popular nightlife spot, was torn from its moorings and dashed against the rocks.

Sand, stones and furniture was left smashed against waterfront businesses in Soufriere, St Lucia.

A thrill-seeker got close to the water’s edge as the storm approached the Dominican Republic on Tuesday.

Houses lost their roofs after Hurricane Beryl passed over the town of Sauteurs, Grenada.

The full force of Hurricane Beryl passed by the south and south-west of the Dominican Republic, but the wind and rain was still bad enough to close roads and displace dozens of people.

Tourists in Cancun, Mexico, are taking the opportunity to enjoy the weather before Hurricane Beryl is expected to hit shores later in the week.

Hurricane Beryl is expected to make landfall on Mexico’s Quintana Roo coast.

In Cancun, people are planning for the worst, filling shopping trolleys and leaving supermarket shelves empty.