Ten days after the devastating passage of Hurricane Dorian, some 1,300 people remained unplaced in the Bahamas where a new storm threatened to fall on Friday.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has indicated that a new tropical storm warning could be issued for central and northwestern Bahamas and Florida, and that strong winds and heavy rains are expected Friday. and Saturday on the islands affected by Dorian. The depression likely to turn into a storm was Friday at midnight, about 380 km southeast of the Abaco Islands, with 80% chance of turning into a storm in the next 48 hours, said the NHC.
Research operations slowly advancing
In the northwest of the Caribbean archipelago devastated by Dorian, a category 5 hurricane, the authorities were still looking Thursday to locate 1,300 people, against 2,500 the day before, according to the emergency services. This drastic drop in the number of people sought is due to the overlap between the list of people reported missing by their relatives and that of victims housed in emergency centers, said the spokesman of the Bahamian emergency agency ( Not my).
The official toll remains at 50, said Caribbean Police Chief Anthony Ferguson. The figure should increase, however, he added, asking the population to be patient, research operations progressing slowly.
The "deep" solidarity of the UN to the victims
"Based on the information I have received and my experience, there are hundreds of deaths," former Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham told the daily Nassau Guardian on Wednesday.
About 2,000 people were still accommodated in reception centers on New Providence Island, and another 150 in Grand Bahama. But the flow of Abaco evacuees has dried up according to the spokesman of the emergency services.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected in the Bahamas on Friday and Saturday to testify to the "deep solidarity" of the organization to the victims of the "terrible hurricane" Dorian. There is a need for the international community "to increase its support for the people of the Bahamas and its government," he said.
Citing the Bahamas, floods in Mozambique, desertification in the Sahel, fires in the Amazon, melting ice in the Arctic and coral destruction, the UN chief urged world leaders to be more ambitious in the fight against climate change. "All this confirms what we all say recently: climate change is faster than us and we must take a much more ambitious approach in what we do" to overcome this phenomenon, he said.