St. Vincent and the Grenadines residents whose birth certificates or passports were affected due to the passage of Hurricane Beryl have been offered some measure of relief to have these documents replaced free of charge.
According to the Agency for Public Information (API), this was announced by Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves during a consultation last week with affected persons from Union Island and other parts of the Southern Grenadines.
Gonsalves indicated the decision was made at a Cabinet level.
“There is something in place, the Cabinet has taken a decision that if you’re from any of the affected areas, not only Union Island, but wherever including on St Vincent, you will get your birth certificate free of cost, you will get your passport free of cost,” said the prime minister.
Hurricane Beryl was the earliest-forming Category 5 hurricane on record and the second such storm in the month of July, the other being 2005’s Hurricane Emily. Beryl was also the strongest hurricane to develop within the Main Development Region (MDR) of the Atlantic before the month of July.
On July 1, Beryl made landfall in the Eastern Caribbean as a high-end Category 4 hurricane, causing total devastation on Grenada’s northern islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique and on several of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ southern islands, such as Union Island and Canouan.
The hurricane intensified further as it entered the Caribbean Sea, peaking as a Category 5 hurricane, before slowly weakening over the next few days due to wind shear as it passed south of Jamaica and then the Cayman Islands. After weakening into a tropical storm over the Yucatán Peninsula, the system moved into the Gulf of Mexico, where it gradually reorganized into a Category 1 hurricane on July 8, just before making its final landfall near Matagorda, Texas.
Related: St. Vincent and the Grenadines PM announces relief measures after Hurricane Beryl
