NASSAU, Sept 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Bahamian government now believes there are 1,300 people missing after Hurricane Dorian plowed into the islands, a sharp decline from the 2,500 listed on the missing registry a day earlier, a government spokesman said.
The Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday had said the larger figure could include people staying at shelters.
“The number of people registered missing with the Bahamas government is going down daily,” NEMA spokesman Carl Smith said at a news briefing.
The count fell after the government cross-referenced lists of people evacuated from hard-hit islands with its registry of missing people, Smith said.
The official death count currently stands at 50 but Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis on Wednesday warned he expected that number to significantly increase.
Hurricane Dorian slammed into the Bahamas on Sept 1 as a Category 5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record to make a direct hit on land and packing top sustained winds of 298 kilometres an hour.
Meanwhile, a tropical cyclone was forecast to move across the northwestern Bahamas in the coming days, potentially bringing more rain and wind to islands already reeling from Hurricane Dorian, the U.S. National Hurricane Center warned.
The Miami-based hurricane centre issued a tropical storm warning for Abacos, Berry Islands, Bimini, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island and New Providence, saying the system could become a tropical depression or storm before making landfall as early as Friday.
The tropical cyclone was not expected to bring anywhere near that level of devastation but was capable of maximum sustained winds of 48 km/h and 5 to 10 centimetres of rain through Sunday, according to the hurricane centre. — NNN-AGENCIES
