The hurricane touched down on the evening of Saturday 7th September 2019 near Halifax, Nova Scotia, where winds of up to 140 km/h were measured.
After making at least 43 dead in the Bahamas and near the United States , hurricane Dorian, weakened but still dangerous, fell on the night of Saturday 7th to Sunday 8th September 2019 in eastern Canada with winds violent, torrential rains and waves of nearly twenty meters.
In the Bahamas, where the authorities expect a worsening of the balance sheet more than a week after the Dorian crossing, many planes, helicopters and boats, including cruise ships, were busy evacuating the affected residents to the city. capital Nassau or to the United States.
500,000 homes without electricity in Nova Scotia
Thousands of kilometers to the north, downgraded to a “very intense post-tropical cyclone” by the Canadian Hurricane Center (CHC), the hurricane touched down on Saturday night near Halifax , Nova Scotia, where winds of up to 140 km / h were measured .
More than 500,000 households were without electricity in Nova Scotia, according to the authorities.
#Dorian va frapper la Nouvelle-Ecosse #Canada en catégorie 1 ces prochaines heures puis accomplira sa transition extratropicale avant d’être repris dans la circulation d’ouest tout en faiblissant. pic.twitter.com/MSdIriWQG3
— Keraunos (@KeraunosObs) 7 September 2019
Images broadcast by television stations showed Halifax streets, deserted, wind-blown and a collapsed crane on a building under construction. No injuries were reported.
“The safety of Canadians is our number one priority and we are ready to help Atlantic Canada as a result of this storm,” tweeted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Approximately 700 soldiers were sent to the eastern provinces to help restore electricity, clear roads and provide relief.
Avec @HarjitSajjan, @RalphGoodale et le @CDS_Canada_CEMD, je viens de recevoir les plus récentes informations concernant l’ouragan Dorian. La sécurité des Canadiens est notre priorité absolue et nous sommes prêts à aider le Canada atlantique à la suite de cette tempête.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) 7 September 2019
Dorian was to continue on Sunday over eastern Canada. Weather alerts have been issued for Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Eastern Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador. The depression should then lose strength and move away over the North Atlantic.
“Some bodies are still lying around, it’s not healthy to stay here”
The evacuations accelerated on Saturday in the Bahamas where the authorities keep warning that the provisional record of 43 dead is brought to increase “considerably”.
The buildings at the small Marsh Harbor airport suffered when Dorian fought on the island of Abaco with winds above 250 km / h. Several hangars were blown by the hurricane category 5, the highest, but the track is still passable and hundreds of people were waiting Saturday to be able to embark for Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.
“It’s been almost a week now, people have no food, no water. Some bodies are still lying around, it is not healthy to stay here, ” AFP told a young mother, Chamika Durosier, who came to get some fresh air outside the terminal to escape the stench of the toilets. whose hunts can not be fired for want of water.
“Some sleep here for three or four days, the number of seats is limited in airplanes,” she continues, still shaken by the shock of the passage of Dorian, the roof of the house that collapsed on her and her daughter and the cuts endured by crawling on the ground.
” Dying “
At the commercial port of Marsh Harbor, several hundred people were also waiting to leave under a sun back, some of which protected themselves with sheets while the odors of waste mixed across the island to those of decomposing bodies.
“We have no water, no electricity. We are dying, it’s really catastrophic, “says Miralda Smith, a Haitian who must find her Bahamian husband in Nassau.
“I had to walk to get here at 4am. And since I’m waiting, I really want to leave the island.”
A ferry chartered by the government, which can carry nearly 200 people, was to join the capital Saturday. But private cruise ships were involved in the evacuation operations. One of them, from the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, arrived Saturday morning near Palm Beach, Florida, with more than 1,500 survivors from Grand Bahama on board.
According to the UN, at least 70,000 people need “immediate assistance” in the Bahamas, the equivalent of the population of the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama, the hardest hit.
The authorities of the archipelago fear that the harsh sanitary conditions still weigh down a human toll, the figures of which they communicate with great caution.
A provisional assessment of 43 dead in the Bahamas
It stood Friday night at 43 dead – 35 in Abaco and eight in Grand Bahama – but Prime Minister Hubert Minnis again warned that it was likely to grow “considerably”.
“This is one of the sad realities we face in this dark period,” he said in a statement, referring to “many missing.”
Solidarity with the Bahamas was taking place around the world. A shipment of the UN World Food Program, with nearly 15,000 meals and tons of equipment, was scheduled to arrive Saturday on the affected islands.
France has announced the deployment, as part of a European mission, several dozens of soldiers to participate in relief. And US President Donald Trump has pledged help from the United States, whose coastguards are already at work in the Bahamas.
