The Caribbean island of Dominica has been “brutalised and devastated” by category 5 Hurricane Maria, the prime minister of the country has said. The eyewall of the hurricane barrelled into Dominica’s eastern coast on Monday evening, crossing towards the former British colony’s capital, Roseau, on the south-west side.

Hurricane Maria had intensified into a category 5 storm as it moved towards Dominica. It was reclassified as a category 4 as it moved away from the island. It is expected to hit the eastern Caribbean islands still working to provide basic food, water and health services to the regions hard hit by Hurricane Irma. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the “major hurricane” was producing maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour and would strengthen further over the next two days, remaining “extremely dangerous” as it approaches the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Roosevelt Skerrit, the prime minister of Dominica, experienced the force of the hurricane first hand. He posted on his official Facebook page that the wind had ripped the roof off his house and wrote he was “at the complete mercy of the hurricane”.(theguardian)…[+]