At least six people have been killed in the Caribbean as a result of Hurricane Beryl. Many homes and streets have been destroyed. The storm has been somewhat downgraded, but serious damage is still feared in Jamaica.

Hurricane Beryl has weakened slightly on its way through the Caribbean. As the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced, it has been downgraded to the second-highest Category 4. As a result, the hurricane, which has winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour, is now just below the Category 5 threshold.

The hurricane is now heading toward Jamaica, where severe damage is also feared. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged residents to stock up on drinking water and canned food ahead of Beryl’s expected passage.

A total of six deaths have been reported.

The hurricane had previously left a trail of destruction across the southeastern Caribbean. Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou, part of the tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada, on Monday. Footage shows roofs torn off as if they were made of cardboard. Palm trees were snapped like matchsticks and debris was sent flying into the air. “Within half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” said Grenada’s Prime Minister Deacon Mitchell. Homes on the island were almost completely destroyed.

Grenada has reported three deaths so far, and two people have died in Venezuela. St. Vincent and the Grenadines mourns one death – Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said 90 percent of homes in the Union Islands have been damaged or destroyed. Power outages and blocked roads are making communication with particularly affected islands difficult.

Beryl is the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean in July.

In less than 24 hours, Beryl had grown from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday and strengthened further after passing over Grenada. Previously, Hurricane Dennis became the first hurricane to become a Category 4 on July 8, 2005, wrote expert Michael Lowry on the X platform.

Beryl was the strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean in July, writes Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane meteorologist at Colorado State University. One reason is the extremely warm seawater. “The current Caribbean ocean heat content is consistent with what we typically have in mid-September,” Klotzbach said. The most active phase of hurricane season is typically between mid-August and mid-October.

Climate change is making powerful storms like Beryl more likely. Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Caribbean are gaining strength at an accelerating rate as surface temperatures rise, according to a study published in October in the journal Scientific Reports. Because of warmer waters and the expected onset of La Niña, a cold-water phase in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. National Weather Service (NOAA) is warning of a particularly strong Atlantic hurricane season this year.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war, Turkey has taken in more than three million refugees. Now there are serious riots against Syrians in Turkish cities – and anti-Turkish protests in Syria.

Carnage-like conditions prevailed Sunday evening in Kayseri, a conservative city of millions in central Anatolia. “We don’t want any more Syrians, we don’t want any more refugees,” protesters chanted. And it’s not just words: Many Syrian-owned shops, homes and cars were vandalized with rocks and clubs and, in at least one case, set on fire.

Although Kayseri is a stronghold of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, the rioters are demanding Erdogan’s resignation. They hold him responsible for the large number of refugees in the country. They accuse the refugees of being the cause of the tense economic situation with rising prices and lack of living space.

Nearly 500 people were arrested.

The protests spread to several other cities on Monday, from Gaziantep on the Syrian border to the western city of Bursa. Police responded with water cannons and tear gas. The next day, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the number of rioters detained was about 500, many with criminal records.

There have been frequent riots against refugees in Turkey. Ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections last year, the umbrella organization of Syrian associations in Turkey complained of increased violence during the election campaign. Spokesman Mehmet Akter said at the time: ARD Studio Istanbul:

A Syrian man is said to have harassed a girl.

There are no elections this time. The reason the mob is still roaming the streets is a message that has spread on social media: A Syrian man is said to have sexually harassed a seven-year-old Syrian girl. The man has since been arrested.

But the violence did not end there. Instead, the tide has shifted: As a result of the riots in Turkey, there are now anti-Turkish protests in northern Syria. “Come on guys, come on, smash the cars!” In an online video that has been viewed nearly five million times in a short period of time, men attack Turkish trucks with paving stones, clubs and iron bars at the al-Bab border crossing. Windows are broken. “Come on, get out! Come on, go back to Turkey!” the men shout.

Speculation about meetings between Erdogan and Assad

In the eyes of the Turkish opposition, the background to the tensions is not the incident in Kayseri, or not only. There is speculation about a possible meeting between Turkish President Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Both have been hostile to each other since the outbreak of the Syrian war.

The potential rapprochement worries Syrian refugees in Turkey, on the one hand, because they fear returning to Syria, and, on the other hand, pro-Turkish rebels in Syria, because they fear for their protection from Erdogan.

Such a meeting could be arranged as early as this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s most important ally. Erdogan is expected to meet Putin on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit that begins Wednesday in Kazakhstan.

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was standing: July 2, 2024, 10:43 AM

from: Nils Hinsberger

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