Hurricane Beryl lashes Jamaica as toll rises to 10

Hurricane Beryl has steamed towards the Cayman Islands and Mexico after thrashing Jamaica with intense wind and rain, causing floods and power outages after forging a destructive path across smaller Caribbean islands in the past couple of days.

The death toll from the powerful category 4 hurricane climbed to at least 10 across the region, and is widely expected to rise further as communications return on islands damaged by flooding and deadly winds.

As Beryl moved away from Jamaica early on Thursday, the island discontinued its hurricane warning but kept a flash flood watch, the Meteorological Service of Jamaica said on X.

By late Wednesday, the storm's eye was about 161km west of Kingston, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), as its core headed toward the Cayman Islands.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 209km/h, Beryl was expected to dump 10-15 centimetres of rain on the Cayman Islands into Thursday, where a hurricane warning was in effect and life-threatening surf and rip currents were possible, NHC said.

A hurricane warning was also in force for the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

The category 3 hurricane was just 90km from Grand Cayman and about 700km off Tulum in Mexico, NHC said.

Beryl's eye wall skirted Jamaica's southern coast, pummelling communities as emergency groups evacuated people from flood-prone areas.

"It's terrible. Everything's gone. I'm in my house and scared," said Amoy Wellington, a 51-year-old cashier who lives in Top Hill, a rural farming community in southern St Elizabeth parish.

"It's a disaster."

A woman died in Jamaica's Hanover parish after a tree fell on her home, Richard Thompson, acting director-general at Jamaica's disaster agency said in an interview on local news.

Nearly a thousand Jamaicans were in shelters by Wednesday evening, Thompson said.

The island's main airports were closed and streets were mostly empty after Prime Minister Andrew Holness issued a curfew for Wednesday, which was extended Thursday as storm conditions continued.

The loss of life and damage wrought by Beryl underscores the consequences of a warmer Atlantic Ocean, which scientists cite as a sign of human-caused climate change fuelling extreme weather.

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, said in a radio interview that the country's Union Island was "flattened" by Beryl and that it would "be a Herculean effort to rebuild".

Nerissa Gittens-McMillan, permanent secretary at St Vincent and the Grenadines' agriculture ministry, warned on state media of possible food shortages after half the country's plantain and banana crops were lost, with significant losses also to root crops and vegetables.

Power outages were widespread across Jamaica, while some roads near the coast were washed out.

Confirmed fatalities included at least three in St Vincent and the Grenadines, a senior official told Reuters, where Union Island suffered destruction of more than 90 per cent of buildings.

In Grenada, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell described "Armageddon-like" conditions with no power and widespread destruction, while also confirming three deaths.

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro told state television that three people had died and four were missing, with more than 8000 homes damaged.

Beryl is the 2024 Atlantic season's first hurricane and the earliest storm on record.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast a large number of major hurricanes in an "extraordinary" season in 2024.