At least five people have died in Bahamas's Abaco Islands from Hurricane Dorian, a category 5 storm that made landfall on the Island country on Sunday and has since wreaked havoc with its sustained winds of up to 297 kmph, country's Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said on Monday afternoon.
Thousands of houses in the northern Bahamas have been damaged or destroyed by the hurricane, emergency responders have said, while the exact magnitude of damage could not be assessed owing to power failures, floods and communication breakdowns. The International Red Cross has put the figure of the number of houses damaged or destroyed to as much as 13,000 reported The New York Times.
The hurricane is expected to cause more damage on the island nation, before moving close to Florida, where a state of emergency has been declared by the state government.
"The hurricane will move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late tonight through Wednesday evening and then move dangerously close to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts on Wednesday night and Thursday," the National Hurricane Center said, as cited by CNN.
The storm had struck the southern end of Elbow Cay at around 2 pm (local time) on Sunday. With gusts of over 321 kmph, Dorian has become "the strongest hurricane in modern records for the northwestern Bahamas," according to the Centre.