Hurricane Beryl has intensified into a “potentially catastrophic” Category 5 storm, the United States’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, as it headed towards Jamaica after bringing down power lines, damaging houses and flooding streets on other southeastern Caribbean islands, reports Al Jazeera.

Beryl, the earliest Category 4 storm ever reported, made landfall earlier on Monday on the island of Carriacou in Grenada.

“Fluctuations in strength are likely… but Beryl is expected to still be near major hurricane intensity” as it moves across the Caribbean.

Carriacou took a direct hit early in the day from the storm’s “extremely dangerous eyewall,” with sustained winds at upwards of 240km per hour (150 mph), the NHC said.

Nearby islands, including Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, also experienced “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge”, the hurricane centre said.

“In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a news conference. He said one person had died, but authorities had not yet been able to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, where communications had been largely cut off.

“We do hope there aren’t any other fatalities or any injuries,” he said. “But bear in mind the challenge we have in Carriacou and Petite Martinique.” Mitchell added that the government will send people early on Tuesday to evaluate the situation on the islands.

Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan