Jamaica braces for Hurricane Beryl as Category 4 storm leaves Grenada with ‘unimaginable’ damage: Live

Hurricane Beryl is barreling toward Jamaica as a Category 4 storm , prompting curfew and disaster warnings, after charting a deadly path through Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

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 told the media after visiting the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.

Officials said about 98 per cent 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.

Ahead of Beryl’s arrival, Jamaica has been declared a disaster area and a curfew has been imposed on Wednesday.

The storm will likely maintain its strength as it reaches Jamaica but it is expected to weaken afterwards. However, meteorologists have raised concerns about “increasing risk” to the US if it remains strong as it could potentially move north impacting Texas , Louisiana and New Orleans.