Tearful: Volunteer Eli Fuller was saddened after hearing of a child’s death on Barbuda
A two-year-old child was killed in Barbuda after being snatched from a relative’s arms by Hurricane Irma’s 185mph winds, according to one of the first people to visit after the storm.
Eli Fuller, who is based in neighbouring Antigua, went to Barbuda with supplies for the devastated population after the storm hit.
But when he arrived, one of the first people he spoke to was an injured woman who had just had a child dragged out of her arms by the remorseless hurricane.
Speaking in a video posted on Facebook, Mr Fuller – who broke down in tears while relaying his experiences – said: ‘She came down to the dock, and she was wrapped up in bandages all over her face [which had] been busted in, and she says, ‘Yeah, you know, I was the lady who lost the child’.’
He explained that her roof had blown off her house during the savage storm.
Mr Fuller said it was particularly difficult for him to tell the story of a ‘child being pulled out their home’ because he has a five-year-old himself.
He added of the woman: ‘She had her arm around a post after the roof blew off and walls [were] caving in and she had her other arm around the child – and she says the wind just pulled the child out of her hands.
‘And that was the last they saw of the child, [until] they found the child the next morning, dead.’
Mr Fuller – from Antigua Atlantic Rowers – also described the destruction on Barbuda as ‘like a nuclear bomb’s gone off’.
He added: ‘You’ve seen photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they dropped the nuclear bomb. It looks like that.’
Prime Minister Gaston Browne (second from left) speaks with people affected by the disaster on the Island of Barbuda after Hurricane Irma smashed into the Caribbean
More than 90 percent of buildings were damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island
The majority of Barbuda’s buildings were flattened when Hurricane Irma battered the tiny island with a population of 1,600 on Wednesday
When he arrived, one of the first people he spoke to was an injured woman who had just had a child dragged out of her arms by the remorseless hurricane
Another woman on the island, Knacyntar Nedd, told ABS TV that people ‘were literally tying themselves to roofs with ropes to hold them down’.
She added: ‘We had cars flying over our head, we had 40ft containers flying left and right.
‘What we experienced is like something you see in a horror movie, not something you expect to actually happen in reality.’
Speaking after the disaster struck, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told ABS TV Radio in Antigua that the island was in ‘total devastation’ and has been reduced to ‘literally rubble.’
He added that the island, which is home to 1,800 people, was left ‘barely habitable’.
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
‘The entire housing stock was damaged… Some have lost whole roofs. Some properties have been totally demolished,’ he said.
More than 90 percent of buildings were damaged when the hurricane’s core crossed almost directly over the island – but the child is believed to have been the only person to die.
About 60 percent of its population was left homeless, however.
‘It is just really a horrendous situation,’ Browne said.