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British woman who had been trapped beneath the rubble for days in one of Bahama’s worst hit islands has been rescued by the Royal Navy. The unnamed woman was taken on board a ship and stabilised before being airlifted to hospital in Nassau, the capital of the island nation, where they were receiving treatment on Thursday night. She is one of the thousands of people who were awaiting rescue on the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama, which have been largely flattened by
Hurricane Dorian. The death toll on Thursday night stood at 30, but it is feared that it will be significantly higher as people search for their missing loved ones. "Let me say that I believe the number (dead) will be staggering," Health Minister Duane Sands was quoted by The Nassau Guardian as telling Guardian radio. "... I have never lived through anything like this and I don’t want to live through anything like this again." The RFA Mounts Bay crew, which have been stationed in the Caribbean since June in preparation for hurricane season, have so far delivered shelter kits, ration packs and water. Damaged cars and trucks sit in a field following landfall by Hurricane Dorian, in the Bahamas Credit: Reuters The Royal Navy said its Wildcat helicopter also evacuated an
American woman along with her two children and a baby to Nassau. The Wildcat will also be airlifting relief to outlying, cut off communities in liaison with the Royal Bahamian Defence Force and is stationed off Abaco. Distraught survivors described the horror of crossing unattended corpses as they made their way to safety. Hurricane Dorian barrels towards US after battering Bahamas, in pictures Ronnie Archer, 71, told The Telegraph many more of the hurricane's victims lay in the streets of Marsh Harbour, Abaco, while looters raid shops for food and water. “The morgue is full and there are bodies floating in the water,” she said after being evacuated. "A friend of mine bumped into the body of a woman which was just floating in the streets. “There is now lots of looting happening. There are people taking rice, juice, everything they can get their hands on. I don’t know if they are armed." An aerial view of damage caused by Hurricane Dorian is seen on Great Abaco Island Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images She was at her home of 30 years when the wind started to get stronger and stronger. “I sat in the wheelchair and I watched my house drop to pieces,” she told this newspaper. “I heard a bang and I looked around and saw that the windows had blown in from the force. The next time that I looked up I saw the sky and I realised that the roof had gone.” Her family, including a seven month old granddaughter, are staying behind to see what they can save as local officials confirmed reports of rampant looting. The
United Nations estimates more than 76,000 people were in need of humanitarian relief after the most damaging storm ever to hit the Bahamas. The British Humanitarian and Disaster Relief team removing debris and providing aid assistance to the Islanders of Great Abaco Credit: Paul Halliwell/BRITISH MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Gaylele Laing broke down in tears and embraced her niece after she was rescued from Abaco on Thursday. As a diabetic who had run out of medicine she was given a priority evacuation, but she was barely able to speak as she revealed that she had to leave her family members, including her grandchildren aged 11 and 12 behind. The Treasure Quay resident told The Telegraph through tears: “It was terrible, there is total devastation, there is nothing left. “We hid in the bathroom as the eye of the storm passed and then the water surge came. We never expected it to be that bad. We had to break the window and swim to safety. The whole family, the kids included. At that point I thought we were going to die. “We did as much as we could to prepare and if we had known it was going to be that bad we would have left Abaco, we have been though hurricanes before but nothing like this. Everything is gone.” Another survivor on the Abaco Islands, Ramond King, said he watched as swirling winds ripped the roof off his house, then churned to a neighbour's home to pluck the entire structure into the sky. Nothing is here, nothing at all. Everything is gone, just bodies," he said. A perfect storm | How climate change has made Hurricane Dorian worse Dorian continued to cause substantial damage as it hit the US coastal states of South and North Carolina on Thursday leaving 239,000 homes and businesses without power. The US National Hurricane Centre warned it remained a category 2 hurricane with winds reaching 110mph and the risk of life-threatening storm surges, winds and flash flooding. Tornadoes spun off by Dorian's outer bands were also reported along the coast, including Emerald Isle, North Carolina, where several homes were destroyed. The beach town said on its website that the tornado hit at around 9 am on Thursday leaving dozens of mobile homes upturned and power lines down. Charleston, in South Carolina had more than 100 roads closed due to severe flooding, with up to 20 inches of rain forecast to hit the historic port city. The map appeared to have been altered with a black marker to include
Alabama Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Meanwhile
Donald Trump, the US president, was mocked for showing a map of the storm's projected path that appeared to have been altered with a black marker pen to include the state of Alabama, which was never in harm's way. Mr Trump had incorrectly claimed in a tweet at the weekend that Alabama was one of the US states that could be hit by the hurricane, leading the National Weather Service to deny that in a tweet of its own. "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east," the National Weather Service in Alabama tweeted. When reporters later asked Mr Trump whether the chart had been altered with a pen, the president said: “I don’t know; I don’t know.” But he doubled down on his claims, saying: "I know Alabama was in the original forecast, they thought it would get a piece of it".