British triplets are among the youngest survivors of the hurricane, it emerged last night.
The six-month-old girls were being nursed in the safest part of the house as 185mph winds turned it mostly it rubble.
British citizens Kate Jackson, 33, her fiancé Alex Ashman, 31, were with her sister Christine Jackson, 31, when the storm struck the British Virgin Islands.
Back home in Manchester, Kate’s other sister Claire Jackson, 29, heard her six-month-old nieces Beatrice, Charlotte and Isabella were safe in a seconds-long phone call.
Kate Jackson, 33 with six-month-old triplets Beatrice, Charlotte and Isabella
Miss Jackson said Mr Ashman had brifely managed to get through to ensure the family in England that the party was safe – but that the family home in Tortola was ‘destroyed’.
She added: ‘It’s a huge relief to know they’re ok but there’s another storm coming and I can tell you there are hundreds of other people that are trying to find out if their families are ok. There’s no phone lines, internet nothing. It’s been like that since Wednesday.’
She said she was worried because another storm, Hurricane Jose, was due to hit the island – and as far as she knew, the party had no shelter.
‘I haven’t slept. These girls are so young. It’s probably the two worst days of my life.’
Miss Jackson, who was with her mother Anne, 58, added: ‘I assume they were calling on an emergency number because Alex couldn’t speak for very long’, said
‘I’m guessing the roof went. The balcony would all have been torn up.
‘They would have gone into the back room of the house because it’s the most secure room. They will have hunkered down there.
‘We lost contact with them [Wednesday] at 4pm. They said it was the first part of the storm before the eye and they were doing ok.’
The six-month-old girls were being nursed in the safest part of the house as 185mph winds turned it mostly it rubble
Meanwhile, the family of a pregnant British woman and her sister missing in Barbuda said last night that ‘the silence is unbearable’.
Seven-months pregnant Afiya Frank, 27, and former Miss Antigua Asha Frank, 29, were both on the island of Barbuda when it was hit by hurricane Irma on Wednesday.
Around 90 per cent of the tiny Caribbean island’s structures have been reduced to rubble.
The Frank family last heard from the girls at 10.30pm on Wednesday as the island was being lashed by 185mph winds.
They have since mounted a frantic campaign to try to find the two women, even fundraising for a satellite phone to be taken by boat to the island from Antigua, but have so far heard nothing.
The women’s aunt Ruth Bolton, 48, said: ‘The silence is unbearable- no contact with our family and no formal of communication- not knowing if they are ok.’
Seven-months pregnant Afiya Frank, 27, (left) and former Miss Antigua Asha Frank, 29, (right) were both on the island of Barbuda when it was hit by hurricane Irma. Both are missing
Last night the girls’ grandmother Sandra Jones, 72, told the Mail that there had been no consular assistance or help from the government in either the UK or Barbuda.
Speaking from her daughter’s home in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, she said: ‘We still don’t know who’s injured or safe, including our own family.
‘Once we get an official statement that there are no deaths and it’s come from a reliable source then we will stop worrying and look forward to them coming home.’
Elsewhere in the Virgin Islands Caroline Whitlock-Henry, 50, and her husband Marcus Henry, 40, have been missing on Virgin Gorda Island since Irma struck on Wednesday.
Mrs Whitlock, a hotel manager on the remote luxury island hadn’t been heard from in 30 hours, her distraught sister said last night.
The couple had tried to evacuate days before Hurricane Irma struck, but were unable to find transportation away.
Mrs Whitlock-Henry’s sister Amanda Whitlock, 49, said yesterday that the last she’d heard from the couple was when they were sheltering in a stairwell in an apartment building waiting for the storm to hit.
Miss Whitlock said she was in a social media group with other relatives of some of the 3,000 people on Virgin Gorda – but not a single person had received any contact.
Breaking down in tears, she said: ‘There has literally been no word from anyone on the island – and I’ve spoken to a lot of people who know someone there.’
Miss Whitlock said she’d contacted her MP, Greg Hands, who directed her to the Foreign Office website – which hadn’t been updated.
She said she was angry at the lack of government response, adding: ‘My sister is a British citizen’.
Originally from Fulham, South-West London, Mrs Whitlock-Henry has lived on Virgin Gorda for 12 years and works as a general manager of the five-star Rosewood Little Hix Bay hotel on the island, which neighbours Richard Branson’s Necker Island.