Storm Fiona strengthened into a hurricane on Sunday as it approached the coast of the American island of Puerto Rico after sweeping Guadeloupe where it caused major flooding and killed one person.

Fiona is currently 80 kilometers from the city of Ponce on the south coast of Puerto Rico, carrying winds blowing up to 130 km / h and threatening the archipelago with torrential rains and mudslides, according to the latest bulletin from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), based in Miami, Florida.

It is currently a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane classification, which has five.

Hurricane Fiona, however, is expected to “strengthen further within 48 hours as it moves near Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic,” US weather services said.

A death in Guadeloupe

Fiona has already caused serious damage during her visit to Guadeloupe overnight from Friday to Saturday.

In places, the water rose more than 1.50 meters.

A man died there, carried away with his house by the waves of a flooded river.

With the warming of the surface of the oceans, the frequency of the most intense hurricanes, with more violent winds and more important precipitations, increases.

In particular, they pose an increasing risk to coastal communities.

US President Joe Biden on Sunday approved Puerto Rico's declaration of a state of emergency, a measure that will release federal funds for relief, coordinated by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency Fema.

power outages

More than 450,000 homes were without power in the American territory of the Caribbean on Sunday morning, according to the specialized site poweroutage.us.

Puerto Rico had been placed on hurricane alert at the end of the week, the governor of the archipelago Pedro Pierluisi urging the population to take shelter.

"We ask residents not to leave their homes and to go to shelters if necessary", especially if they are in areas at risk from landslides and floods, said Mr. Pierluisi during a press conference on Sunday morning.

"Due to its magnitude, this storm is going to impact all of Puerto Rico," he continued.

The flood alert is expected to be in effect until Monday.

Former Spanish colony, which became American territory at the end of the 19th century, Puerto Rico was hit in 2017 by hurricanes Irma and Maria which caused devastation from which the island took a long time to recover.

Then-President Donald Trump was heavily criticized for throwing paper towel rolls at residents of the archipelago, with some accusing the billionaire of treating them like second-class citizens.

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