The Goodfellas and Taxi Driver star, who is planning to open a luxury resort on the Caribbean island, said he will work with the Barbuda Council to rebuild ‘what nature has taken away from us’
Robert De Niro has promised to help rebuild Barbuda after it was devastated by the lethal Hurricane Irma.
The Goodfellas and Taxi Driver star, who is planning to open a luxury resort on the Caribbean island, said he will work with the Barbuda Council to rebuild ‘what nature has taken away from us’.
It comes after Irma wreaked ‘absolute devastation’ on Barbuda, leaving it ‘barely habitable’ and destroying 90 per cent of homes on the island, according to officials.
But De Niro’s Paradise Found Nobu Resort – which he is developing with the billionaire James Packer – is set to help with repairs, according to TMZ.
Barbuda, part of the twin island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, suffered ‘absolute devastation’ with more than 90 per cent of dwellings completely destroyed, a child killed and 60 per cent of the population left homeless.
‘It is just a total devastation. Barbuda is literally rubble,’ Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told ABS TV Radio in Antigua.
He added that the island, which is home to 1,800 people, was left ‘barely habitable’.
‘The entire housing stock was damaged… Some have lost whole roofs. Some properties have been totally demolished,’ he said.
The majority of Barbuda’s buildings were flattened when Hurricane Irma battered the tiny island with a population of 1,600 on Wednesday
Hurricane Irma destroyed 90 percent of the tiny island of Barbuda (above) when it made landfall early on Wednesday. The Caribbean island was reduced to rubble, according to its Prime Minister Gaston Browne
‘We have estimated the rebuilding efforts to be no less than $150 million. That is conservative, because we’re talking about rebuilding everything, all of the institutions, the infrastructure, the telecommunications, the roads… Even the hotels on the island, those are totally demolished, as well. It is terrible.’
Barbuda was the first land to be hit by 185mph Irma, with the storm destroying nearly all buildings on the island and killing a two-year-old child as a family tried to escape.
The hurricane has left at least 10 dead and thousands homeless amid a swathe of smashed buildings and uprooted trees, cutting a path of devastation across the Caribbean on a track that could lead to a catastrophic strike on Florida.