People recover broken parts of the dock after the passing of Hurricane Irma, in St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, on Wednesday. – AP

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP):
Nearly every building on the island of Barbuda was damaged when the eye of Hurricane Irma passed almost directly overhead early Wednesday and about 60 per cent of the island’s roughly 1,400 people were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.

“Either they were totally demolished or they would have lost their roof,” Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island. “It is just really a horrendous situation.”

He said roads and telecommunications systems were destroyed and recovery will take months, if not years. A two-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.

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