After Irma, hurricane Maria batters Caribbean as a category 5 storm

San Juan, Puerto Rico: After Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria enters Eastern Caribbean with an intensity of category 5, which pounded the small island of Dominica on Monday night. Forecasters have warned it might become even stronger.

The storm was following a path that could take it on Tuesday near many of the islands recently destroyed by Hurricane Irma and then possibly head directly towards Puerto Rico on Wednesday, reports U.S. News.

Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit shared the fury of storm in a series of Facebook posts, as it made landfall on the mountainous island.

“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” Skerrit wrote at the start of a series of increasingly harrowing posts. A few minutes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanized steel roofs tearing off houses on the small rugged island.

A half hour later, he wrote: “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Seven minutes later he posted that he had been rescued.

Dominica is a heavily forested former British colony home to 72,000 people, lies in the eastern Caribbean about halfway between the French islands of Guadeloupe, to the north, and Martinique, to the south.

Hurricane Maria would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years, since a Category 4 storm swept the US island territory in 1932, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, urged island residents in a social media advisory to brace for the storm’s arrival, saying, “It is time to seek refuge with a family member, friend or head to a state shelter.”