Hurricane Beryl hits Jamaica as rain and 145mph winds knock out power ahead of landfall: Live updates

Hurricane Beryl is hitting Jamaica with life-threatening rain and 145mph winds this afternoon after charting a deadly path through Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

High winds from the Category 4 storm have already knocked down power lines in Portland, the Jamaica Observer reports. Officials have declared Jamaica a disaster area and imposed a curfew for Wednesday.

There are more than 900 shelters across Jamaica and an evacuation process for those in flood-prone and low-lying areas, Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon said on Wednesday morning.

The storm will move toward the Cayman Islands this evening before making its way to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Grenada was left with “unimaginable” destruction , Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said after the storm destroyed buildings and left several people dead.

“We have to rebuild from the ground up,” he said.

Officials said about 98 percent of the buildings on the islands, home to 6,000 people, had been damaged or destroyed. Four people have been confirmed dead in the region and three in Venezuela, taking the death toll to seven.

Beryl intensified to the earliest Category 5 storm recorded in the Atlantic overnight before weakening back to Category 4 on Tuesday.

While the storm is expected to weaken later this week, it will likely remain a major hurricane. Hurricane Beryl also has the potential to hit southern Texas and Louisiana over the weekend, according to projections from the National Weather Service.