The incident at the Swar dam is the fourth major dam failure in recent months.

Monsoon rains have caused a dam in Myanmar to overflow, inundating the nearby township of Swar and surrounding villages in Bago region.At least 50,000 people are thought to have evacuated their homes after the Swar irrigation dam was breached during the early hours of 29 August, 2018, according to Reuters.Images on social media show teams from fire services and military helping to evacuate people from flooded areas. Myanmar Fire Service said they were using boats to carry out search and rescue operations. Some unconfirmed reports suggested that there have been some fatalities.Parts of Laos were badly affected in July this year when heavy rainfall caused the collapse of the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower dam under construction in Sanamxay District of Attapeu province, that left at least 35 dead and many more still missing.In Colombia, the government in Antioquia department, Colombia, declared a Public Calamity after the Hidroituango Dam on the Cauca river threatened to collapse. On 12 May, a sudden release of water from the dam flooded municipalities of Puerto Valdivia and Taraza down stream, forcing around 600 people to evacuate their homes. By 23 May, further evacuations had been carried out in Puerto Valdivia and the municipalities of Puerto Antioquia, Cáceres and Tarazá, with the total number disaplced at around 25,000.In Kenya, the Patel Dam in Solai, Subukia Sub-County, Nakuru County , broke its banks on 09 May, 2018, killing at least 38 people. </s> Read the latest on Hurricane Maria with Friday’s live updates.

Puerto Rico remained in the throes of chaos and devastation Thursday as the remnants of Hurricane Maria continued to dump rain on the island — up to three feet in some areas.

Flash flood warnings persisted, according to the National Hurricane Center, with “catastrophic” flooding “especially in areas of mountainous terrain.”

The strikingly powerful storm had rendered an estimated 3.4 million people without power, and with the territory’s energy grid all but destroyed, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló predicted a long period of recovery. Anxious relatives in the mainland United States and elsewhere took to social media in an effort to find news of their loved ones.

Late Thursday, the mayor of Toa Baja, a town in northern Puerto Rico, told The New York Times that eight people had drowned there after flooding. That brought to at least 10 the number who have died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria, a toll that is expected to climb.

Puerto Rico faces numerous obstacles as it begins to emerge from the storm: the weight of an extended debt and bankruptcy crisis; a recovery process begun after Irma, which killed at least three people and left nearly 70 percent of households without power; the difficulty of getting to an island far from the mainland; and the strain on relief efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other groups already spread thin in the wake of several recent storms.

“Irma gave us a break, but Maria destroyed us,” said Edwin Serrano, a construction worker in Old San Juan.

The storm churned off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic as a Category 3 hurricane on Thursday, and the National Hurricane Center repeated hurricane warnings for late Thursday and early Friday morning for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos. </s> Puerto Rico is preparing to take a direct hit from Hurricane Maria. Today it became a dangerous Category 4 storm. Forecasts have it passing straight over Puerto Rico on Wednesday. The U.S. territory was not hit as hard as people feared it might have been by Hurricane Irma, but three people were killed, and it sustained damage that could be above a billion dollars. Now ahead of Maria, evacuation orders have been issued today for parts of the island.

I spoke with Puerto Rico's secretary of state, Luis Rivera Marin. He says this is all happening while the government is providing shelter and medical care to evacuees of Hurricane Irma from neighboring islands.

LUIS RIVERA MARIN: We are talking about thousands of people. It's 3,286 evacuees, mostly U.S. citizens that were either residing or vacationing in the islands which were stranded after Irma hit. And the airports were compromised as well as communications.

SHAPIRO: And so as you are preparing your island for the potential arrival of Hurricane Maria, you also have to consider these people who are in temporary shelters. Are those shelters hurricane-proof?

MARIN: They are hurricane-proof. Currently we have facilitated an area in our convention center which was designed originally to also serve as a shelter with all the facilities, including showers, including kitchens and support services. And we have a infirmary with health services. We received close to 210 patients of - renal patients that were without dialysis for a few days, and we needed to have them stabilized. And we are working with them.

We even had a birth. This morning, one of the evacuees delivered a baby in the middle of the preparations. So it's been a challenge. Nevertheless, we're being - working very closely with federal agencies, which include HHS, FEMA and the Department of Defense, which provided the airplanes.

SHAPIRO: I know you just went through Irma preparations a couple of weeks ago. Now you're dealing with preparations for Maria. What are you as an island doing to prepare?

MARIN: Well, this storm has - is one of unequal proportions. Certainly our infrastructure has been compromised because of Irma. And we have not re-established service. And now we have changed from a recovery mode to a preparation mode in terms of our emergency management. Certainly the storm's swell is truly a challenge for all our coast. As an island, we're talking about a storm swell close to 8 feet. And with the probability of having seas in the amount of 25 feet swells, this is certainly a catastrophic proportion for the island.

So right now we are in the process of evacuating most of our coastal towns. Our citizens are really hesitant to leave their dwellings. And right now I'm with the mayor of Catano, working and trying to convince many of our citizens to evacuate and go to a shelter, which are - we have shelters for 120,000 people around the island. And the way we do this - our public school systems - our public schools are turned over to our emergency service, and they're full of cots and ready to receive evacuees.

SHAPIRO: Luis Rivera Marin is Puerto Rico's secretary of state. Thank you very much for joining us.

MARIN: Thank you. Thank you for having us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. </s> related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

5 related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

Hurricane Maria barrelled towards the Turks and Caicos on Friday after lashing Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands with winds and rain that destroyed homes, caused flooding, devastated economies and left at least 32 people dead.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Hurricane Maria barrelled towards the Turks and Caicos on Friday after lashing Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands with winds and rain that destroyed homes, caused flooding, devastated economies and left at least 32 people dead.

Maria is the second major hurricane to hit the Caribbean this month and the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in nearly 90 years. It knocked out the island's power and several rivers hit record flood levels.

At least 15 people were killed in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día‏ newspaper reported.

Fourteen deaths were reported on the island nation of Dominica, which has a population of about 71,000. Two others were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe and one on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The death toll in the Caribbean is likely to rise when searches resume at daybreak.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew through Saturday for the island's 3.4 million people.

"If it is not an emergency situation, people should remain in their homes or shelters," he was quoted as saying by El Nuevo Día.

Among those killed in Puerto Rico were eight people who drowned in Toa Baja, about 20 miles (32 km) west of San Juan, Mayor Bernardo Márquez told the newspaper.

More than 4,000 people were rescued from flooded areas of Toa Baja, he was quoted as saying.

Three elderly sisters were killed by a mudslide on Wednesday in the mountainous central municipality of Utuado, El Nuevo Día said, citing relatives and the mayor of Utuado.

In the heart of the island's capital San Juan, which has a fort and buildings from the Spanish colonial era, the storm left a trail of wreckage. Toppled trees cut power lines and streets were turned into rivers.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters the island had been "totally obliterated" and he planned to visit.

Puerto Rico was already facing the largest municipal debt crisis in U.S. history.

A team of judges overseeing its bankruptcy has advised involved parties to put legal proceedings on hold indefinitely as the island recovers, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

Maria is a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of up to 125 mph (205 kph). It was 45 miles (70 km) east-southeast of Grand Turk Island as of 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

It was forecast to bring storm surges of up to 12 feet (3.7 m) to the southeastern Bahamas as well as the Turks and Caicos, it said.

Maria was expected to bring as much as 40 inches (102 cm) of rain to Puerto Rico and an island-wide flash flood watch was in effect. Between eight and 16 inches (20 to 40 cm) of rain was expected on Turks and Caicos, which could cause flash floods and mudslides, the NHC said.

Maria looked unlikely to hit the continental United States but its storm swells will reach the U.S. southeastern coast from Friday, the NHC said.

Utility crews from the U.S. mainland were headed to Puerto Rico to help restore the power grid and the U.S. military sent ground forces and aircraft to assist with search and rescue.

More than 95 percent of wireless cell sites were not working on Thursday afternoon on the island, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, more than three-quarters of cell sites are out of service.

In Dominica, Maria damaged about 95 percent of roofs, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. It struck as a Category 5 storm on Monday, ripping foliage off plants and obliterating the island's vital agricultural sector.

The storm caused flooding in the Dominican Republic when it passed nearby from Wednesday night.

Maria passed close by the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix, home to about 55,000 people, early on Wednesday as a Category 5 storm, knocking out electricity and most mobile phone service.

"The worst is behind us," Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp told reporters on Thursday. The government has imposed a 24-hour curfew until further notice.

About 600 people throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands are in emergency shelters and many parts are without power, Mapp said.

"It's going to be a long road to recovery," Mapp said. Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma pounded two other U.S. Virgin Islands: St. Thomas and St. John.

Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killed at least 84 people in the Caribbean and the United States. It followed Harvey, which killed more than 80 people when it hit Texas in late August and caused flooding in Houston.

More than two months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. </s> Updated at 9:12 a.m. ET

After devastating parts of the Caribbean, Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico at 6:15 a.m. ET Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had previously been a Category 5 hurricane, but even downgraded, it packed powerful sustained winds of 150 mph and is the strongest storm to have hit the island in decades.

After several deaths were reported in the Caribbean, Maria's eye closed in on the island near the eastern municipality of Yabucoa. The NHC says the eye will continue to move across the U.S. territory Wednesday morning and will move off the northern coast by afternoon.

"The center will then pass just north of the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic tonight and Thursday," according to the hurricane center.

"Very high winds are just tearing trees apart," Miguel Santiago with member station WRTU in San Juan reported Wednesday morning. "Most of the island is without power ... or water."

As the punishing winds moved over the island, doors were ripped off hinges, roofs went airborne and widespread flooding was reported in the capital city of San Juan, says The Associated Press.

Puerto Rico had long been spared from a direct hit by a hurricane; the last Category 4 storm to make landfall on the island was in 1932, reports the AP. Most recently, Puerto Rico avoided the worst of Irma, which went on to strike Florida.

In the days before Maria hit the island, Puerto Ricans were urged to heed hurricane warnings and evacuation orders.

"We expect severe devastation," Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told NPR on Tuesday. "We have about 500 shelters. People have been trickling into those shelters. But really, we have some weak infrastructure in terms of some of the homes that we have in Puerto Rico."

By late Tuesday, more than 4,000 people on the island had gone to shelters to wait out Maria, the governor tweeted.

"One of the shelters in San Juan had to relocate refugees to the hallways because of the roof, it was shaking due to the winds," Santiago said.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered his support via Twitter: "Puerto Rico being hit hard by new monster Hurricane. Be careful, our hearts are with you- will be there to help!"

The storm also blew over the tiny eastern Caribbean island of Dominica late Monday. An adviser to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says the storm killed at least seven people there, according to the AP.

Skerrit had been active on social media, posting multiple times about the storm's effects. Monday night he wrote, "My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding." He later said he had been rescued.

His last Facebook post was made in the early hours of Tuesday, since then — silence. "Initial reports are of widespread devastation. So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace," Skerrit wrote just after midnight Tuesday. "My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured."

"We will need help, my friend, we will need help of all kinds."

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, two people were killed on the island of Guadeloupe, the AP reports. Two people aboard a boat were reported missing off La Desirade island, just east of Guadeloupe, officials told the news agency. </s> SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Latest on Hurricane Maria (all times local):

Hurricane Maria is lashing the northeastern Dominican Republic early Thursday and is expected to pass near the Turks and Caicos later in the day.

The Category 3 storm’s maximum sustained winds are near 115 mph (185 kph) and the U.S. National Hurricane Center says some strengthening is possible during the next day or so.

Maria, which has killed at least 10 people across the Caribbean, is centered about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and is moving northwest near 9 mph (15 kph).

Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans are rebuilding after the hurricane slammed into the U.S. territory Wednesday, crushing concrete balconies and paralyzing the island with landslides, flooding and downed trees.

Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans stunned by a hurricane that crushed concrete balconies and paralyzed the island with landslides, flooding and downed trees vowed to slowly rebuild amid an economic crisis as rescue crews fanned out across the U.S. territory.

The extent of the damage is unknown given that dozens of municipalities remain isolated and without communication after Maria hit the island Wednesday morning as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds, the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in over 80 years.

Uprooted trees and widespread flooding blocked many highways and streets across the island, creating a maze that forced drivers to go against traffic and past police cars that used loudspeakers to warn people they must respect a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed by the governor to ensure everyone’s safety. </s> When Antigua's airport was closed Tuesday, visitors were sent away with advice to seek protection from the storm and a prayer, "May God protect us all."

Andrea Pujols, 26, who lives in Guaynabo, a suburb of the Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, spoke to The Washington Post on Tuesday night as she and her 55-year-old father, Edwin, raced to the airport to retrieve her mother, who was returning home from a trip to Pittsburgh ahead of the storm, having refused to let her family ride out Irma without her. The three will be holed up at home with Pujols' grandmother and dog, Lady.

"It's been chaos all day long," Pujols said. "There's nothing left at the supermarket. They're saying the airport will be closed for days. They're saying there's not going to be any light for three to four months."

In and around their city, which is not expected to see much flooding, Pujols said, several churches have opened as shelters for those who've evacuated already — and for those forced to do so later.

To prepare, the Pujols family stocked up on canned food, water and fuel for their small generator. It provides enough power to run some lights and fans, which in the absence of air conditioning should offer mild reprieve from the wilting tropical air.

They've even filled several large garbage cans, anticipating water and sewer service will be disrupted "for who knows how long," Edwin Pujols said.

As the storm approached Tuesday, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello encouraged residents to head for one of the territory's hundreds of shelters.

"The dangerousness of this event is like nothing we've ever seen," he said. "A lot of infrastructure won't be able to withstand this kind of force."

The government also began evacuating areas in the north and east of the island that are susceptible to flooding. Meanwhile, the director of Puerto Rico's power company warned that Irma could leave some areas without electricity for as much as four to six months, according to The Associated Press.

Local government officials have done well, the Pujols family said, by encouraging residents to stockpile supplies, avoid dangerous places or unnecessary risks, and leave areas most prone to flooding. "But with rain over rain over rain," Andrea Pujols added, "we're just hoping it doesn't get any worse" than what's been forecast.

Farther east, municipalities throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands are bracing for destruction of the like its 107,000 residents have not experienced since hurricane Marilyn in 1995 and, very possibly, Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Both storms — Marilyn hit St. Thomas as a strong Category 2, Hugo struck St. Croix as a Category 4 — claimed lives, levelled homes and business and knocked out basic services for months.

Rep. Stacey Plaskett, who represents the territory in Congress, told The Washington Post on Tuesday night that the Federal Emergency Management Administration has personnel pre-staged there to help launch recovery efforts once the storm passes. The White House declared a state of emergency there earlier in the evening, but Plaskett, a Democrat, called Irma "a local issue," and insisted the local government has the lead in ensuring a swift, orderly response.

Of principal concern, she said, are the islands' hospitals, many of which have lacked enough in federal funding to complete desired building upgrades that would fortify them against severe weather. What money is given to the Virgin Islands through Medicare and Medicaid is prioritized for patient care, she said.

The Navy is ready to deploy a hospital ship and medical personnel if such help is needed, Plaskett told The Post.

St. Thomas and St. John are expected to be hit "much harder" than St. Croix, she added.

Plaskett said she's worried about storm surge and how it will affect those who rely on cisterns, large tanks that collect and store rainwater for cooking, showering and flushing toilets. She's worried about the islands' power grid — "We have some difficulty with electricity as it is," she noted — and the islands' communications network. She's worried whether residents remembered to charge their cellphones and have enough backup batteries to keep their radios powered.

"My greatest concern right now," the congresswoman added, "is that people stay indoors."

With Irma expected to thrash South Florida, where mandatory evacuations were ordered Tuesday, some Virgin Islanders were nervous that federal assistance would become less of a priority once the storm affects the continental United States.

Michael Resch, 59, whose father built St. Thomas's Island Beachcomber Hotel in 1957, remembers the painful recovery from Marilyn and Hugo, when the power went out for several weeks.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "we're kind of like the forgotten child here. Every time they talk about Irma, it's all 'Floridabe prepared.' St. Thomas never gets mentioned."

President Donald Trump declared emergencies in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

By early Tuesday evening, about 10 of the hotel's 50 rooms remained occupied, Resch said. Some of his younger employees, those who'd never experienced a hurricane before, were on edge, but he was working to keep them and the guests calm.

His staff had moved everyone to the building's first floor and stowed all remaining pool furniture that could become airborne in Irma's powerful winds. Resch said he is hopeful that reinforcements made to the hotel after Hurricane Hugo will keep the roof intact in his hotel's three buildings, and that any power loss will be brief.

The Island Beachcomber doesn't have a generator, he said.

"If there's a good thing about being on an island in a hurricane, it's that the storm doesn't get stuck over the land," Resch said, a reference to the days-long battering that Texas took during late last month during hurricane Harvey. "It'll be gone in twelve to twenty hours. But Mother Nature -" </s> SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Rescuers fanned out to reach stunned victims Thursday after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, knocking out electricity to the entire island and triggering landslides and floods.

The extent of the damage is unknown given that dozens of municipalities remained isolated and without communication after Maria hit the island Wednesday morning as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds, the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in over 80 years.

Uprooted trees and widespread flooding blocked many highways and streets across the island, creating a maze that forced drivers to go against traffic and past police cars that used loudspeakers to warn people they must respect a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed by the governor to ensure everyone’s safety. People resorted to rafts and kayaks to get around because flooding made many roads remained impassable.

“This is going to be a historic event for Puerto Rico,” said Abner Gomez, the island’s emergency management director.

Previously a Category 5 with 175 mph (281 kph) winds, Maria hit Puerto Rico as the third-strongest storm to make landfall in the U.S., based on its central pressure. It was even stronger than Hurricane Irma when that storm roared into the Florida Keys earlier this month.

In the capital of San Juan, towering eucalyptus trees fell nearly every other block over a main road dotted with popular bars, restaurants, and coffee shops, some of which were damaged. Outside a nearby apartment building, 40-year-old tourism company operator Adrian Pacheco recounted how he spent eight hours in a stairwell huddled with 100 other residents when the hurricane ripped the storm shutters off his building and decimated three balconies.

“I think people didn’t expect the storm to reach the point that it did,” he said. “Since Irma never really happened, they thought Maria would be the same.”

Hurricane Irma sideswiped Puerto Rico on Sept. 6, leaving more than 1 million people without power but causing no deaths or widespread damage like it did on nearby islands. Maria, however, blew out windows at some hospitals and police stations, turned some streets into roaring rivers and destroyed hundreds of homes across Puerto Rico, including 80 percent of houses in a small fishing community near the San Juan Bay, which unleashed a storm surge of more than 4 feet.

“Months and months and months and months are going to pass before we can recover from this,” Felix Delgado, mayor of the northern coastal city of Catano, told The Associated Press.

The slow slog back to normalcy was in evidence Thursday, however, as residents removed storm shutters and lines began forming at the few restaurants with generator power. The sound of chain saws and small bulldozers filled the post-storm silence that had spread across San Juan as firefighters removed trees and lifted toppled light posts.

Some neighbors pitched in to help clear the smaller branches, including Shawn Zimmerman, a 27-year-old student from Lewistown, Pennsylvania who moved to Puerto Rico nearly two years ago.

“The storm didn’t bother me,” he said. “It’s the devastation. I get goosebumps. It’s going to take us a long time.”

Maria has caused at least 10 deaths across the Caribbean, including seven in the hard-hit island of Dominica and two in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe. Puerto Rico’s governor told CNN one man died after being hit by flying debris. No further details were available, and officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Dominica Tourism Minister Robert Tonge described his badly damaged country three days after Hurricane Maria made landfall in the eastern Caribbean island. An update from him said the capital of Roseau still had severe flooding and there was heavy damage throughout the city. The hospital and a community center both lost roofs.

One of two airports serving the country was inoperable while the other was expected to be operational in the coming days. An estimated 95 percent of the roofs were blown off in some towns, including Mahaut and Portsmouth.

Maria weakened to a Category 2 storm later in the day but re-strengthened to Category 3 status early Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph). According to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, the storm was centered about 105 miles (175 kilometers) east-northeast of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and moving northwest at 9 mph (15 kph). The eye of the storm is expected to approach the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas late Thursday and early Friday.

The hurricane was still dumping rain overnight Wednesday in Puerto Rico, where crumbled red roof tiles lay scattered across many roads, and curious residents sidestepped and ducked under dozens of black power lines still swaying in heavy winds. But they posed no danger: Maria caused an island-wide power outage, with officials unable to say when electricity would return.

Puerto Rico’s electric grid was crumbling amid lack of maintenance and a dwindling staff even before the hurricanes knocked out power. Many now believe it will take weeks, if not months, to restore power.

Edwin Rosario, a 79-year-old retired government worker, said an economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of nearly half a million Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland will only make the island’s recovery harder.

“Only us old people are left,” he said as he scraped a street gutter in front of his house free of debris. “A lot of young people have already gone...If we don’t unite, we’re not going to bounce back.” </s> Updated at 9:12 a.m. ET

After devastating parts of the Caribbean, Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico at 6:15 a.m. ET Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had previously been a Category 5 hurricane, but even downgraded, it packed powerful sustained winds of 150 mph and is the strongest hurricane to have hit the island in decades.

Maria's eye closed in on the island near the eastern municipality of Yabucoa. The NHC says the eye will continue to move across the U.S. territory Wednesday morning and will move off the northern coast by afternoon.

"The center will then pass just north of the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic tonight and Thursday," according to the hurricane center.

"Very high winds are just tearing trees apart," Miguel Santiago with member station WRTU in San Juan reported Wednesday morning. "Most of the island is without power ... or water."

Puerto Rico had long been spared from a direct hit by a hurricane and most recently avoided Irma, which went on to strike Florida.

In the days before Maria hit the island, Puerto Ricans were urged to heed hurricane warnings and evacuation orders.

"We expect severe devastation," Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told NPR. "We have about 500 shelters. People have been trickling into those shelters. But really, we have some weak infrastructure in terms of some of the homes that we have in Puerto Rico."

By late Tuesday, more than 4,000 people on the island had gone to shelters to wait out Maria, the governor tweeted.

"One of the shelters in San Juan had to relocate refugees to the hallways because of the roof, it was shaking due to the winds," Santiago said.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered his support via Twitter: "Puerto Rico being hit hard by new monster Hurricane. Be careful, our hearts are with you- will be there to help!"

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, a falling tree killed one person on the island of Guadeloupe Tuesday, The Associated Press reports. Two people aboard a boat were reported missing off La Desirade island, just east of Guadeloupe, officials told the news agency.

The storm also blew over the tiny eastern Caribbean island of Dominica late Monday. NPR's Two-Way reports:
Tens of thousands of people in northern Puerto Rico are ordered to evacuate after floodwaters from Hurricane Maria damage the Guajataca Dam.