BAHAMAS: One week after Hurricane Dorian devastated the Bahamas, residents struggled amid the ruins Sunday, with many forced to seek refuge far from their shattered homes as the death toll from the top-intensity storm hit 44 in the islands.
Dorian, now classified as a post-tropical storm, caused "severe damage" in eastern Canada and was expected to move soon into the North Atlantic after cutting a destructive swath through the Bahamas and going up the US east coast.
In the Bahamas, people were still scrambling for shelter, with the lucky evacuees beginning to reunite with loved ones but the fate of uncounted others still in doubt.
Prime Minister Hubert Minnis warned the death toll -- which Health Minister Duane Sands put at 44, according to local media -- was likely to climb "significantly."
A loosely coordinated armada of passenger planes, helicopters and both private and government boats and ships -- including redirected cruise liners -- converged in the Bahamas on the horribly battered Abacos to help with evacuations, both to Nassau and to the US mainland.
Tropic Ocean Airways said it planned to fly supplies to hard-hit Marsh Harbour from Florida and bring out some 220 people to Nassau on a Delta Air Lines jet. On Saturday, a cruise ship carrying 1,400 people docked in Riviera Beach, Florida, CNN reported. All had documents to enter the United States.
The Coast Guard said all Bahamian ports had now reopened.
As of Sunday morning, it had five cutters providing support and five helicopters taking part in search and rescue operations.
It said 308 people had been rescued.
Many of those still waiting to leave Marsh Harbour were Haitian workers. The area where they lived -- The Mudd -- was almost completely wiped out by Dorian.
Haitians who have arrived in Nassau have accused the government of prioritizing native-born Bahamians for evacuation from Marsh Harbour over Haitian nationals.
- YAHOO