India played South Africa in the final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados on June 29, Saturday. The Rohit Sharma-led team beat the Proteas by 7 runs as India clinched their second T20 World Cup title.
However, the team return to India has been delayed as they remain stuck on the Caribbean Island.
According to a Reuters report, Hurricane Beryl has been classified as “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm. The hurricane is expected to make its landfall on Caribbean’s Windward Islands today. The hurricane is likely to result in life-threatening winds and flash floods.
The first hurricane of the 2024 season was located about 240 km southeast of Barbados on Sunday night, with maximum sustained winds of 215 kph, as per an advisory issued by the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
As a precautionary measure Barbados’ airport has been shut affecting airline operations in the island.  The squad is now expected to only return once the hurricane passes and things return to normalcy on the island.
“Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane as its core moves through the Windward Islands into the eastern Caribbean,” the NHC said in its latest advisory.
The center of the hurricane is expected to travel across the Windward Islands on Monday morning as a Category 4 storm, the second-strongest level on a five-step scale, bringing “potentially catastrophic wind damage” to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada.
It is rare for a major hurricane to appear this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. On Sunday, Beryl became the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record, beating Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 on July 8, 2005, according to NHC data.
Hurricane warnings have been issued in Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, Grenada and Tobago. A tropical storm watch has been issued for Dominica, Trinidad, and parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Authorities and residents on the Caribbean islands were preparing for the storm’s arrival.
Tobago has opened shelters, closed schools for Monday, and cancelled elective surgeries in the hospitals, authorities said.
The hurricane is expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) of rain across Barbados and the Windward Islands throughout the day on Monday, which the NHC warned could cause flash flooding in vulnerable areas.
Large, dangerous swells are also expected to batter the southern coasts of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola.
In May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic in 2024, in part due to near-record warm ocean temperatures.
(with Reuters inputs)
