Hurricane Beryl on path to Jamaica after monster storm with 165mph winds flattened tiny island in half an hour: Live updates

Hurricane Beryl is barreling toward Jamaica as a Category 5 storm with 165mph winds after charting a deadly path through Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, flattening buildings and killing at least two people.

Beryl intensified to the earliest Category 5 storm recorded in the Atlantic overnight after smashing the record as the earliest Category 4 storm on record. The storm made landfall in the Windward Islands on Monday, where it “flattened” Carriacou Island within half an hour, Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said.

There were “widespread reports of destruction and devastation in Carriacou and Petite Martinique,” Mitchell said on Monday.

At least one death was reported in Grenada and a second in St Vincent and the Grenadines, where Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said that around 90 percent of homes had been damaged or destroyed on Union Island.

Jamaica is now under a Hurricane Warning. The hurricane was located about 625 miles (1,005km) east-southeast of Kingston , Jamaica and 300 miles (485km) southeast of Isla Beata of the Dominican Republic, packing maximum sustained winds of 165mph (270km/h), the National Hurricane Center said on Tuesday morning. The Cayman Islands is also under a Hurricane Watch.