The death toll from Hurricane Dorian is rising.
New reports out of the Bahamas have now put the official number of deaths from Dorian at 30, as officials warn that the final count will be “significantly higher.”
Dorian claims lives
Word about the rising death count was first reported by CNN’s Anderson Cooper who spoke with Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis by phone on Thursday evening. Minnis put the new total at 30, up from the previously reported 23. He noted that a 57-man team from the U.S. had just arrived to assist in search and rescue efforts.
But it’s not expected to stop there. Joy Jibrilu, the director-general of the country’s tourism and aviation ministry, has suggested that the final death toll could be far more.
“Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing,” she said.
Jibrilu’s statement was reiterated more emphatically by Dr. Duane Sands, who told Guardian Radio that “the public needs to prepare for unimaginable information about the death toll and the human suffering. Make no bones about it,” he added, “the numbers will be far higher. It is going to be significantly higher than that.”
Warlike conditions
In a separate interview with The New York Times, Dr. Sands shared horrifying details about the situation in the Bahamas, particularly in the expectation of finding more deceased people.
“We are embalming bodies so that we have more capacity as new bodies are brought in,” he said. “We need to get coolers into Abaco and Grand Bahama, because we believe that we may not have the capacity to store the bodies.”
These two areas — the Abaco islands and Grand Bahama island — suffered the full brunt of Dorian when it made landfall as a category 5 hurricane. Accordingly, the destruction is at its greatest there. “It was like being in a tornado for hours on end,” one Abaco resident told a BBC reporter. “Everything is gone.”
Rescue crews in white overalls wearing blue gloves and face masks can be seen dotted throughout the two regions. With the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, they have successfully rescued over 200 people.
Dorian Weakens
Leaving this destruction in its wake, Dorian has continued up the eastern coast of the United States, hitting the Carolinas. According to the Weather Channel, the storm has weakened to a category 1 hurricane.
Forecasts indicate that it is expected to head a little more northward, perhaps hitting the District of Columbia and southeastern Virginia, before heading out to sea.
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