HURRICANE BERYL ripped off roofs in Jamaica, turned over fishing boats in Barbados and damaged or destroyed 95 per cent of homes on a pair of islands in St Vincent and the Grenadines on Wednesday before rumbling toward the Cayman Islands.

The storm is now hurtling towards Mexico’s Caribbean coast after leaving at least seven dead in its wake.

Beryl’s eye wall brushed by Jamaica’s southern coast on Wednesday afternoon knocking out power and ripping roofs off homes. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that Jamaica had not seen the “worst of what could possibly happen.

“We can do as much as we can do, as humanly possible, and we leave the rest in the hands of God.”

A number of Jamaica’s interior settlements were hard hit, while some communities in the northern section were without electricity, according to the government’s Information Service.

The worst perhaps came earlier in Beryl’s trajectory when it smacked two small islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Director of the St Vincent and Grenadines National Emergency Management Organisation Michelle Forbes said about 95 per cent of homes in Mayreau and Union Island have been damaged.

Three people were reported killed in Grenada and Carriacou and another in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Three other deaths were reported in northern Venezuela and one fatality in Grenada.