GENEVA, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The strongest Atlantic hurricane in more than a decade may have battered an estimated 1.2 million people and it poses a serious threat to millions more, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Thursday.
The IFRC said in a statement from Geneva that at least 10 people are believed to have been killed.
"Our worst fears have played out in Barbuda and elsewhere," said Walter Cotte, the IFRC's regional director for the Americas.
Category 5 Hurricane Irma has cut a swath of destruction through half a dozen Caribbean nations and foreign territories in the past 24 to 36 hours.
Reports from Barbuda suggest that nearly every building has been damaged or destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico are left without power, according to the authorities.
"Our volunteers have been active for a number of days helping communities prepare. We can't yet assess the full extent of damage, but we expect that the Red Cross will be delivering extensive support to many thousands over the coming weeks and months," said Cotte.
Irma is now bearing down on the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba, where an estimated 26 million people could be exposed to destructive winds and torrential rain. In preparation for Irma's passage, IFRC said it had released just under 600,000 Swiss francs (630,000 U.S. dollars) from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to bolster preparedness and early response efforts in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti. It said this added to earlier allocations of about 120,000 Swiss francs. (1 Swiss franc = 1.05 U.S. dollars)
