SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico’s governor met mayors from around the ravaged island on Saturday after surveying damage to an earthen dam in the northwestern part of the US territory that was threatening to collapse from flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Some 70,000 people who live downstream from the compromised dam, which has formed a lake on the rain-swollen Guajataca River, were under orders to evacuate, with the structure in danger of bursting at any time.
“We saw directly the damage to the Guajataca dam,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said in a Spanish-language Twitter message on Saturday while reinforcing his request that people leave the area as soon as possible.
“The fissure has become a significant rupture,” Rossello said separately at a news conference on Saturday.
The US National Weather Service said on its website the dam was still in danger of failing and triggering life-threatening flash floods.
“Stay away or be swept away,” it warned.
Meanwhile, people across the island were struggling to dig out from the devastation left by the storm, which killed at least 25 people, including at least 10 in Puerto Rico, as it churned across the Caribbean, according to officials and media reports.
“To all Puerto Ricans, please know we will get back up,” the governor tweeted as he met mayors in the territory to identify their most urgent needs. “Together with the mayors, as one government.4Puerto Rico“
In a development that could help the recovery effort, the Port of San Juan reopened, according to a Twitter message from the agency that operates it, allowing ships to unload supplies.
Severe flooding, structural damage to homes and virtually no electric power were three of the most pressing problems facing Puerto Ricans, said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during a tour of the island.
“It’s a terrible immediate situation that requires assistance from the federal government — not just financial assistance,” said Cuomo, whose state is home to millions of people of Puerto Rican descent.
“It is a dangerous situation today and it’s going to be a long-term reconstruction issue for months,” Cuomo, a Democrat and potential 2020 presidential candidate, told CNN.
PATH OF DESTRUCTION
Maria, the second major hurricane to savage the Caribbean this month and the most powerful storm to strike Puerto Rico in nearly a century, carved a path of destruction on Wednesday. It knocked out electricity, apart from emergency generators, on the island of 3.4 million inhabitants.
Near the rain-swollen Guajataca River, in the northwest part of the island, floodwater littered with branches and debris engulfed the first floor of a number of homes and swamped vehicles that were left behind.
“We lost our house, it was completely flooded,” said resident Carmen Gloria Lamb. “We lost everything, cars, clothes, everything.”
The storm has resulted in 10 confirmed fatalities on the island so far, Rossello’s office told CNN on Saturday. The governor’s office could not be reached for comment by Reuters.
Signs of the strain on Puerto Ricans were evident throughout San Juan, the capital.
Drivers had to wait up to seven hours at the few filling stations open on Saturday, according to news reports, and lines of cars snaked for blocks. Hotels warned that guests might have to leave soon without fresh supplies of diesel to keep generators operating.
Water rationing also began on Saturday. Signs posted throughout San Juan’s Old Town informed residents that service would return for two hours each day, between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., until further notice.
Telephone service was also unreliable, with many of the island’s cell towers damaged or destroyed.
People swarmed under some of the towers, holding up their devices in the hopes of getting a signal.
The governor also extended a nightly curfew on Saturday, the Caribbean Business newspaper reported.
At San Juan’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Mary Ann Arciola, her 32-year-old daughter and two young grandchildren slept in a rented van hoping to get a flight home to the United States.
“There’s nobody at the desks. There’s nothing on the screens,” said Arciola, 62. “There’s a ton of people. They are starting to fight. It’s not good.”
DEBT CRISIS
Maria struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as the island was already facing the largest municipal debt crisis in US history.
The storm may have caused an estimated $45 billion in damage and lost economic activity across the Caribbean, with at least $30 billion of that in Puerto Rico, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research in Savannah, Georgia.
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, 14 deaths were reported on Dominica, an island nation of 71,000 inhabitants.
Two people were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe and one in the US Virgin Islands. Two people died in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, according to media outlet El Jaya.
Maria still had sustained winds of up to 115 miles per hour (185 km per hour) on Saturday, making it a Category 3 hurricane, but was expected to weaken gradually over the next two days as it turned more sharply to the north.
Dangerous surf and rip currents driven by the storm were expected along the southeastern coast of the US mainland for several days, the National Hurricane Center said.
Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and the United States. It followed Hurricane Harvey, which also killed more than 80 people when it struck Texas in late August and caused flooding in Houston.
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Fears of dam collapse add to Puerto Rico’s misery after hurricane
Fears of dam collapse add to Puerto Rico’s misery after hurricane
In show of support, Canada, France open consulates in Greenland
COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Canada and France, which both adamantly oppose Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, will open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital on Friday, in a strong show of support for the local government.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons.
The US president last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater American influence.
A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but the details of the talks have not been made public.
While Denmark and Greenland have said they share Trump’s security concerns, they have insisted that sovereignty and territorial integrity are a “red line” in the discussions.
“In a sense, it’s a victory for Greenlanders to see two allies opening diplomatic representations in Nuuk,” said Jeppe Strandsbjerg, a political scientist at the University of Greenland.
“There is great appreciation for the support against what Trump has said.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced Paris’s plans to open a consulate during a visit to Nuuk in June, where he expressed Europe’s “solidarity” with Greenland and criticized Trump’s ambitions.
The newly-appointed French consul, Jean-Noel Poirier, has previously served as ambassador to Vietnam.
Canada meanwhile announced in late 2024 that it would open a consulate in Greenland to boost cooperation.
The opening of the consulates is “a way of telling Donald Trump that his aggression against Greenland and Denmark is not a question for Greenland and Denmark alone, it’s also a question for European allies and also for Canada as an ally, as a friend of Greenland and the European allies also,” Ulrik Pram Gad, Arctic expert at the Danish Institute of International Studies, told AFP.
“It’s a small step, part of a strategy where we are making this problem European,” said Christine Nissen, security and defense analyst at the Europa think tank.
“The consequences are obviously not just Danish. It’s European and global.”
Recognition
According to Strandsbjerg, the two consulates — which will be attached to the French and Canadian embassies in Copenhagen — will give Greenland an opportunity to “practice” at being independent, as the island has long dreamt of cutting its ties to Denmark one day.
The decision to open diplomatic missions is also a recognition of Greenland’s growing autonomy, laid out in its 2009 Self-Government Act, Nissen said.
“In terms of their own quest for sovereignty, the Greenlandic people will think to have more direct contact with other European countries,” she said.
That would make it possible to reduce Denmark’s role “by diversifying Greenland’s dependence on the outside world, so that it is not solely dependent on Denmark and can have more ties for its economy, trade, investments, politics and so on,” echoed Pram Gad.
Greenland has had diplomatic ties with the European Union since 1992, with Washington since 2014 and with Iceland since 2017.
Iceland opened its consulate in Nuuk in 2013, while the United States, which had a consulate in the Greenlandic capital from 1940 to 1953, reopened its mission in 2020.
The European Commission opened its office in 2024.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons.
The US president last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater American influence.
A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but the details of the talks have not been made public.
While Denmark and Greenland have said they share Trump’s security concerns, they have insisted that sovereignty and territorial integrity are a “red line” in the discussions.
“In a sense, it’s a victory for Greenlanders to see two allies opening diplomatic representations in Nuuk,” said Jeppe Strandsbjerg, a political scientist at the University of Greenland.
“There is great appreciation for the support against what Trump has said.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced Paris’s plans to open a consulate during a visit to Nuuk in June, where he expressed Europe’s “solidarity” with Greenland and criticized Trump’s ambitions.
The newly-appointed French consul, Jean-Noel Poirier, has previously served as ambassador to Vietnam.
Canada meanwhile announced in late 2024 that it would open a consulate in Greenland to boost cooperation.
The opening of the consulates is “a way of telling Donald Trump that his aggression against Greenland and Denmark is not a question for Greenland and Denmark alone, it’s also a question for European allies and also for Canada as an ally, as a friend of Greenland and the European allies also,” Ulrik Pram Gad, Arctic expert at the Danish Institute of International Studies, told AFP.
“It’s a small step, part of a strategy where we are making this problem European,” said Christine Nissen, security and defense analyst at the Europa think tank.
“The consequences are obviously not just Danish. It’s European and global.”
Recognition
According to Strandsbjerg, the two consulates — which will be attached to the French and Canadian embassies in Copenhagen — will give Greenland an opportunity to “practice” at being independent, as the island has long dreamt of cutting its ties to Denmark one day.
The decision to open diplomatic missions is also a recognition of Greenland’s growing autonomy, laid out in its 2009 Self-Government Act, Nissen said.
“In terms of their own quest for sovereignty, the Greenlandic people will think to have more direct contact with other European countries,” she said.
That would make it possible to reduce Denmark’s role “by diversifying Greenland’s dependence on the outside world, so that it is not solely dependent on Denmark and can have more ties for its economy, trade, investments, politics and so on,” echoed Pram Gad.
Greenland has had diplomatic ties with the European Union since 1992, with Washington since 2014 and with Iceland since 2017.
Iceland opened its consulate in Nuuk in 2013, while the United States, which had a consulate in the Greenlandic capital from 1940 to 1953, reopened its mission in 2020.
The European Commission opened its office in 2024.
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