Powerful Hurricane Beryl churned along Jamaica’s southern coast on Wednesday, battering the island with dangerous winds and sea surge after leaving a trail of destruction and at least seven people dead in the Caribbean.

The eye of the Category 4 hurricane has not yet breached the shore of Jamaica but could in the coming hours, and is expected to approach or even make landfall in the Cayman islands overnight before moving onward to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The storm is the first since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June and the earliest to reach Category 5 in July.

Ahead of Beryl’s arrival, people across Jamaica removed boats from the water and rushed to buy food, water, gasoline and other essentials.
As of Wednesday afternoon the storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph), said the NHC. Hurricane conditions are spreading through the island, it said.