AT LEAST two people have died in Jamaica during the passage of Hurricane Beryl between June 3 and 4, taking the total number of deaths in the region attributed to the hurricane to 11.

The storm hit Jamaica as a powerful category four and was downgraded to a category two a day later as it moved closer to the Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday evening.

The storm moved over the Cayman Islands as a category three on the morning of June 4, where major damage was reported but no casualties.

Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela all reported three deaths each associated with the hurricane. Multiple people have been reported missing.

Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management announced the death of a 26-year-old Hanover woman, Kayon Sterling, on June 3 after a tree limb fell on her while she stood outside her home during the storm.

According to the report, a family member reportedly stumbled upon the body and called the police. The victim was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Police reported a 26-year-old man was swept away by floodwaters in Kingston on Wednesday evening and is believed to have drowned.

Newsday was told the man was playing football in Trench Town, St Andrew, and went after a ball that fell into a gully.

“Divers went after him and found no sign of his body,” a source from Jamaica Observer said.

Power also dropped, reportedly affecting 60 per cent of the population, while floods, fallen trees and debris caused significant damage, particularly South of the island. Some major roads remained impassable. Jamaica has also reported major losses in the agriculture and fishing sectors.

Communication was also significantly affected, attributed by Digicel to the power outages.

The company said some 50 per cent of cell sites were off-air, and 25 per cent were running on generators and batteries.

On June 3, Jamaica PM Andrew Holness declared a new curfew, expiring the following morning, even after Jamaica’s Meteorological Service downgraded the hurricane warning to a flash flooding warning.

“I convened the Cabinet virtually this evening and received reports from the relevant ministers,” Holness said.

The government issued a statement a day later, saying normal government ministry operations were slated to resume while it received status reports on the impact of the hurricane. The National Water Commission also announced islandwide water restrictions as it moved to restore water supply to affected areas, which it said was practically every parish.

Jamaica’s health ministry cautioned against carbon monoxide poisoning after three cases of poisoning were reported, apparently in connection to the use of generators.

Less than a day after landfall on the southern Windward Islands, Beryl became the earliest category-five hurricane in the Atlantic basin on the evening of July 1. Its strength and trajectory have fluctuated significantly since then.

Apart from the deaths attributed to the storm, St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Canouan, Mayrea

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