Omar strengthened into a hurricane and took aim at the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico yesterday after drenching the southeastern Caribbean.
Authorities issued a hurricane warning for the US Virgin islands as well as Puerto Rico’s Vieques and Culebra islands.
Hurricane warnings were also in place for St Martin, the British Virgin Islands, St Kitts and Nevis and other islands.
PHOTO: AP
Officials in Puerto Rico, already soaked from several days of rain, warned residents to prepare for a lot more, and medical authorities appealed for blood donations for possible casualties.
Omar was a Category 1 hurricane with winds near 120kph, and the US National Hurricane Center in Miami projected it would strengthen further.
The center said the storm would likely pass by Puerto Rico overnight yesterday, and possibly deliver a direct blow to the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands.
In the US Virgin Islands, residents scrambled to stock up on batteries, water and canned goods.
Emergency management director Mark Walters urged islanders to take the warnings seriously.
“This is the time to take those precautions, in terms of getting your family and your personal selves ready for the storm,” he said.
Classes and ferry services were canceled in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
The hurricane center said Omar was expected to plow over the northeastern Caribbean islands then head into the central North Atlantic, well away from the US mainland.
At 2am EDT on Tuesday, Omar’s center was located about 495km south-southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving northeast near 9kph.
While Omar menaced Puerto Rico, a tropical depression developed just off Honduras. The 16th depression of the season, which will be called Paloma if it strengthens into a tropical storm, was expected to come ashore somewhere between eastern Honduras and Belize.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS