Hurricane Maria roared ashore in Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the strongest storm to hit the US territory in about 90 years after lashing the US Virgin Islands and devastating a string of tiny Caribbean islands, killing at least one person.
Packing 250kph winds and driving high storm surges, Maria made landfall near Yabouca, the National Hurricane Centre said. It was heading northwest, on a track directly over the island of 3.4 million people.
It struck just days after the region was punched by Hurricane Irma, which ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, which left a trail of destruction on several Caribbean islands and Florida.
"We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history," Ricardo Rossello, governor of Puerto Rico, said in a televised message on Tuesday.
"Although it looks like a direct hit with major damage to Puerto Rico is inevitable, I ask for America’s prayers," he said, adding the government has set up 500 shelters.
In Puerto Rico, Maria is expected to dump as much as 63.5cm of rain on parts of the island, the NHC said. Storm surges, when hurricanes push ocean water dangerously over normal levels, could be up to 2.74 metres.
A few hours earlier, Maria passed west of St Croix, home to about half of the US Virgin Islands' 103,000 residents, as a rare Category 5 storm the top of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
The centre has hurricane warnings and watches out for the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Culebra, and Vieques, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the southeastern Bahamas and the Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to Puerto Plata.
Direct hit
Maria is set to be the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1928, when the San Felipe Segundo hurricane made a direct hit on the island and killed about 300 people, the National Weather Service said.
A slow weakening is expected after the hurricane emerges over the Atlantic north of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the NHC added.
Puerto Rico avoided a direct hit from Irma, but the storm knocked out power for 70% of the island, and killed at least three people.
Puerto Rico is grappling with the largest municipal debt crisis in US history, with both its government and the public utility having filed for bankruptcy protection amid fights with creditors.
