PUERTO RICO: Hurricane Fiona strengthened to a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday as it headed toward Bermuda after slamming Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Turks and Caicos Islands with heavy rains and flooding, a US government agency said.
With its eye now about 1,125 km southwest of Bermuda, Fiona was packing winds as high as 130 miles per hour and was expected to strengthen as it moved north, the National Hurricane Center said in an early on Wednesday report.
“On the forecast track, the centre of Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos today, and approach Bermuda late on Thursday,” the agency said.
The Bermuda Weather Service has issued a tropical storm warning for the archipelago, which lies 600 miles east of the US state of North Carolina, as Fiona tracks to the west of the British Overseas Territory. Hurricane-force winds are a possibility depending on the storm’s path, it said.
“Outer rain bands will sweep into the region bringing bouts of showers, thunderstorms, and heavy rain,” the weather service said in its forecast for Thursday and Friday.
Fiona has so far claimed four lives in Puerto Rico, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. The storm made landfall on the island, a US territory, on Sunday, knocking out power to the island and dumping massive amounts of rain. A fifth person was killed in Guadeloupe earlier in the week.
An estimated 1.2 million homes and businesses remained without power in Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning. — Reuters
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