MARIGOT: Irma strengthened Tuesday into an “extremely dangerous” Category Five hurricane, meteorologists warned, sparking alarm and flooding alerts as it barrelled toward the Caribbean.
The monster hurricane coming on the heels of Harvey, which struck Texas and Louisiana late last month is expected to make landfall along the string of French islands including Guadeloupe late Tuesday before heading to Haiti and Florida.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center in its 1200 GMT bulletin said Irma had strengthened to the most powerful Category Five, packing winds of 175 miles (280 kilometers) per hour.
The front was moving west at 14 miles (22 kilometers) per hour, and is expected to drop between four and eight inches (10 and 20 centimeters) of rain when it hits land.
“These rainfall amounts may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” the NHC warned.
Irma’s center was located about 320 miles (515 km) east of the West Indies’ Leeward Islands, the NHC said, urging that “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion” in the region.
Schools and government offices in Guadeloupe have been ordered shut, while hospitals are stocking up on medicines, food and drinking water. People living on shorelines will be moved to safety, authorities said.
Saint Barthelemy and St. Martin islands, both popular holiday destinations, are expected to be especially hard hit.
The top French official of the islands, Anne Laubies, said in Saint Martin’s capital Marigot the hurricane posed the greatest threat in 20 years, with more people endangered in flood-prone areas because of a rise in population.
The governor of the US state of Florida, Rick Scott, declared a state of emergency, saying Irma posed “a severe threat to the entire state of Florida,” barely a week after Harvey claimed at least 42 lives.
Long queues of people rushed to get batteries and bottled water, while many cut trees around their dwellings and sought to tie down objects and seal up their windows.
Category Five hurricanes are rare and are capable of inflicting life-threatening winds, storm surges and rainfall.
A hurricane of this magnitude can tear off roofing, shatter windows, uproot palm trees and turn them into projectiles that can kill people.
Irma is projected to make landfall late Tuesday or early Wednesday, bringing water levels up to nine feet (3 meters) above normal levels, rainfall of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in areas, and “large and destructive waves,” the US National Hurricane Center warned.
Harvey, which dumped as many as 50 inches of rain in some parts of Houston, turning neighborhoods into lakes and causing material damage estimated at around $100 billion (85 billion euros), was a Category Four hurricane.
In Puerto Rico, a US territory of 3.5 million, Governor Ricardo Rossello activated the National Guard and announced the opening of storm shelters able to house up to 62,000 people.
The mayor of the Puerto Rican capital San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto, ordered 900 municipal employees — police, emergency personnel, and aid and social workers — to report for rotating 12-hour shifts.
Even if Puerto Rico is spared a direct hit, the mayor said, three days of pounding rain will do heavy damage.
A US aircraft carrier with a field hospital and dozens of aircraft able to conduct rescue or supply missions has been positioned protectively in the area, according to Alejandro de la Campa of the Caribbean division of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Local press identified the carrier as the USS Kearsarge.
Irma’s precise path remains unclear. But several projection have it passing over the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba before turning north toward Florida and then possibly swinging up the US East Coast.
Irma is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 3 to 6 inches across the islands of the northeastern Caribbean, with isolated maximum amounts of 10 inches across the northern section.
Irma strengthens to Category 5 hurricane
Irma strengthens to Category 5 hurricane
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
