A shocking video has shown an entire bridge being ripped away in Puerto Rico, as Hurricane Fiona caused complete chaos on the island.
Footage of metal bridge - which was built in the aftermath of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria - show the bridge on Puerto Rico Highway 123, in the town of Utuado, being torn out of its moorings and being completely washed downriver by surging flood waters.
Other videos shared by locals, reporters and politicians show metal railings lying on the side of the road - some still attached to the bridge - as they were pulled out of the ground and dragged along.
Disaster has hit the Caribbean island after most people were left without power on Sunday. Hurricane Fiona caused catastrophic flooding and landslides on the island, before barrelling down towards the Dominican Republic, a government agency said.
Speaking of the devastation, Puerto Rico Governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said at a news conference in the capital San Juan: "This has been catastrophic."
He added that the whole island’s electrical system was “out of service due to the effects of the hurricane” - which affected nearly 1.5 million households.
And Luma, Puerto Rico’s power transmission and distribution company, said: “Current weather conditions are extremely dangerous and are hindering our capacity to evaluate the complete situation.”
Power had begun to be restored to some areas by Sunday night, officials said, but reconnecting the whole island would take days. Priority has been given to hospitals and other critical community services.
On the island, several landslides had been reported, officials said. Roads were closed and a highway bridge in Utuado, a town in the centre of the island, had been washed away by a flooding river. Additionally, Puerto Rico's ports were closed and flights out of the main airport canceled.
Emergency declaration was approved by U.S. President Joe Biden for Puerto Rico on Sunday, which authorised the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief and provide emergency protective measures.
Denise Rios, who lives in the southwestern town of Hormigueros, said she was left without power following strong gusts of wind and rain that began around noon on Sunday.
"Since then it hasn't stopped," she said. "It is raining heavily and the wind is blowing hard. I'm calm, but alert."
Torrential rains and mudslides were also forecast for the Dominican Republic as the storm progresses northwestward, with the Turks and Caicos Islands likely facing tropical storm conditions on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
By Sunday night, aid agencies in the Dominican Republic began evacuating residents from high-risk areas in the east of the country
Meanwhile, Carmen YulÃn Cruz, the former mayor of San Juan, said on Twitter that many believed the rainfall was worse than Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The hurricane ripped up asphalt from roads, closed airports, swamped cars and dumped so much rain that some rivers were rising 20 feet in just hours, according to eyewitnesses.
It was also the strongest storm Puerto Rico had seen in nearly 90 years - destroying whole neighbourhoods and killing nearly 3,000 people. It wrecked the power grid so thoroughly that one month afterwards, about 88 per cent of the island was still without electricity, affecting around 3 million people.
One death tied to Fiona has been reported so far, in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Authorities said a man was found dead on Saturday after his house was swept away by floods.
