Category 5 hurricane Irma had caused catastrophic damage across the Caribbean as it swept across islands including St Martin, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the British and US Virgin Islands last week.
Irma, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, had killed nearly 40 people – at least 10 of them in Cuba – before turning its fury on Florida.
A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the population of the state of Florida in US, were ordered to evacuate the state, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
