AFP

Fiona strengthened into a powerful Category Three hurricane on Tuesday as it headed toward the Turks and Caicos islands after leaving two dead and triggering major flooding and blackouts in the Caribbean.

With maximum winds nearing 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour, the storm is already bringing hurricane conditions to the British overseas territory and is expected to become even stronger, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

“Heavy rains around the center of Fiona impacts the Turks and Caicos through this afternoon with continued life-threatening flooding,” the NHC said in an advisory, adding that the storm was expected to pass near the island chain within hours.

Fiona has left two people dead so far: one man whose home was swept away in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and another in the Dominican Republic who died while cutting down a tree to protect against the storm.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader has declared three eastern provinces to be disaster zones: La Altagracia — home to the popular resort of Punta Cana — El Seibo and Hato Mayor.

Several roads were flooded or cut off by falling trees or electric poles around Punta Cana where the power was knocked out, an AFP journalist on the scene said.

Footage from local media showed residents of the east coast town of Higuey waist-deep in water, trying to salvage personal belongings.

“It came through at high speed,” Vicente Lopez, in the Punta Cana beach of Bibijagua told AFP, bemoaning the destroyed businesses in the area.

The NHC said “heavy rainfall and localized life-threatening flash flooding” would continue over part of the Dominican Republic on Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden has meanwhile declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico — where the storm hit a day earlier — authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance in the US island territory.

Governor Pedro Pierluisi said the storm had caused catastrophic damage since Sunday, with some areas facing more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rainfall.

– ‘Unprecedented’ flooding –

Across Puerto Rico, Fiona caused landslides, blocked roads and toppled trees, power lines and bridges, Pierluisi said.

A man was killed as an indirect result of the power blackout — burned to death while trying to fill his generator, according to authorities.

On Monday afternoon, Nelly Marrero made her way back to her home in Toa Baja, in the north of Puerto Rico, to clear out the mud that surged inside after she evacuated.

“Thanks to God, I have food and water,” Marrero — who lost everything when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico five years ago — told AFP by telephone.

Fiona knocked out power to much of Puerto Rico, an island of three million people, but electricity had been restored for some customers on Monday, the governor said.

The hurricane has also left around 800,000 people without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

After years of financial woes and recession, Puerto Rico in 2017 declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. 

Later that year, the double hit from two Hurricanes, Irma and Maria, added to the misery, devastating the electrical grid on the island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

The United Nations’ massive global summit returned Tuesday with a stark warning from the world body’s chief of an upcoming “winter of global discontent” from rising prices, a warming planet and deadly conflicts.

After two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly again asked leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, while saluting efforts for global cooperation, warned of a dire state of the planet.

“A winter of global discontent is on the horizon,” Guterres said as he opened the annual General Assembly. 

“Trust is crumbling, inequalities are exploding, our planet is burning. People are hurting — with the most vulnerable suffering the most.”

With global temperatures rising and a chunk of Pakistan the size of the United Kingdom recently under water, Guterres lashed out at fossil fuel companies and the “suicidal war against nature.”

“Let’s tell it like it is — Our world is addicted to fossil fuels. It’s time for an intervention. We need to hold fossil fuel companies and their enablers to account,” Guterres said.

He called on all developed economies to tax profits from fossil fuels and dedicate the funds both to compensate for damage from climate change and to help people struggling with high prices.

“Polluters must pay,” Guterres said.

– Ukraine in focus –

The summit was disrupted after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, with President Joe Biden of the United States, by tradition the second speaker on the opening day, instead due to speak on Wednesday.

Day one features French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the European Union, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.

“There are many other problems, we know. But the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed to support countries hardest hit by the fallout from the war as she headed to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

“The brutality of Russia’s war of aggression and its threat to the peace order in Europe have not blinded us to the fact that its dramatic effects are also clearly being felt in many other regions of the world,” Baerbock said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was visiting despite a hostile reaction from the United States.

With the Ukraine war leading to a global grain crisis, hunger is another major issue on the agenda. More than 200 NGOs called for urgent action from leaders gathered for the General Assembly to “end the spiraling global hunger crisis.”

“Around the world, 50 million people are on the brink of starvation in 45 countries,” they said, adding that as many as 19,700 people are estimated to be dying of hunger every day, which translates to one person every four seconds.

– Talks between rivals –

Other leaders to speak Tuesday include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship out badly needed grain to the world.

Erdogan is also expected to meet in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a dramatic rebound in relations after the Turkish leader’s strident criticism of the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians.

In the type of last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.

Also high on the agenda for the UN week will be Iran, whose hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, is traveling to the General Assembly for the first time and met Tuesday with France’s Macron.

In a US television interview ahead of his arrival, Raisi said Iran wanted “guarantees” before returning to a nuclear deal that former president Donald Trump trashed in 2018.

Biden supports a return to the 2015 agreement, under which Iran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.