Hurricane Irma looms large over Turks and Caicos Islands, Florida next

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ The eye of the devastating category-5 hurricane Irma was moving near the Turks and Caicos Islands on Friday and continued tracking towards South Florida where it could slam Miami this weekend.

The hurricane was currently located about 85 km west-southwest of the Grand Turk Island and about 145 km off the eastern coast of the Great Inagua island in the Bahamas bringing with it maximum sustained winds of 280 km/h. The Turks and Caicos are a British overseas territory in the Caribbean with about 35,000 people.

Officials there are “working intensively on disaster preparedness and response … (and) liaising with their counterparts in the Cayman Islands for assistance,” CNN quoted UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Alan Duncan as saying Thursday night.

Although its intensity is expected to fluctuate in the next 48 hours, it will remain a “powerful category 4 or 5 hurricane” as it is moving towards the west and northwest at 26 km/h, weather experts warned. Irma is then expected to move towards the northern part of Cuba and then Florida.