Caribbean hit by category five Hurricane Maria

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• Hurricane Maria strengthens to category five storm

• Storm has 'dreaded pinhole eye'

• Path of storm very similar to Irma

• 'My roof is gone': Dominica prime minister describes 'fury' of hurricane

• Sir Richard Branson calls for 'Marshall Plan' for BVI

• US senator urges airlines to cap fares for people fleeing storm

• Residents of British territories in Caribbean brace for Hurricane Maria

Hurricane Maria strengthened to an "extremely dangerous" category five hurricane on Monday night as it battered Dominica and barrelled towards several Caribbean islands.

The storm was moving along roughly the same path as Hurricane Irma, which devastated several islands and parts of Florida earlier this month.

Watch live: Track path of Hurricane Maria

Maria, with winds of up to 160mph, made landfall on the Caribbean island of Dominica late on Monday evening.

A series of Facebook posts by Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit captured the fury of the storm as it made landfall on the mountainous island.

"We have lost all that money can buy," he said. "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.

He then wrote that he thought his home had been damaged. And three words: "Rough! Rough! Rough!"

A half hour later, he said: "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.

Hurricane warnings were issued for the British Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Martinique and St Lucia - all of which are still recovering from Irma.

At least 37 people were killed by Hurricane Irma, which caused billions of pounds of damage. Sir Richard Branson's private Necker island, part of the British Virgin Islands, was destroyed.

The US National Hurricane Center said the storm would likely intensify over the next 24 hours or longer, noting its eye had shrunk to a compact 10 miles across and warning: "Maria is developing the dreaded pinhole eye."

That generally means an extremely strong hurricane will get even mightier, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. He said it just like when a spinning ice skater brings in their arms and rotates faster.

"You just don't see those in weaker hurricanes," he said.

Forecasters said "potentially life-threatening" storm surges could raise water levels by six to nine feet near the storm's centre. The storm was predicted to bring 10 to 15 inches of rain across the islands, with more in isolated areas.

The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe - the bridgehead for aid for Irma-hit French territories - ordered all at-risk zones to be evacuated.

If it keeps on the same trajectory, Maria would directly strike Puerto Rico on Wednesday.

"This storm promises to be catastrophic for our island," said Ernesto Morales with the US National Weather Service in San Juan.

US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp warned residents not to underestimate the threat from Maria, or its potential to change track. "Just remember this is a live animal," he said.

The island of St. Croix appeared to be in the path of hurricane-force force winds, with nearby St. Thomas and St. John seeing tropical storm-force winds, Mapp said, adding, "given the current conditions of St. Thomas and St. John, that's not good."

Forecasters also were tracking Category 1 Hurricane Jose, packing 75-mph (120-kph) winds and located about 250 miles (405 km) east of North Carolina, and stirring dangerous surf and rip currents to much of the U.S. Eastern seaboard.

7:32AM

Dominica PM: 'We have lost all what money can buy and replace'

The residents of tiny Dominica have "lost all what money can buy and replace" after Hurricane Maria pounded the Caribbean island early Tuesday, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said.

"The winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with," Skerrit said in a Facebook post.

He appealed for "help of all kinds" but noted specifically that helicopters will be needed so that authorities can survey the damage.

7:28AM

How many hurricanes hit the Caribbean?

7:01AM

'We need help'

Roosevelt Skerrit, the prime minister of Dominica, has appealed for help on Telesur TV.

6:19AM

Residents in British territories hunker down

Residents living in British overseas territories have begun to hunker down as category five Hurricane Maria barrels into the Caribbean.

Warnings for islands including the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat have been issued, as the weather front becomes the second to batter the region in under two weeks.

Briton Carolyne Coleby, who is a photographer and a sheep farmer on the Caribbean island of Montserrat described the situation as "very serious".

Speaking to the Press Association as Maria began to approach, the 52-year-old said:

Montserrat escaped the clutches of Hurricane Irma relatively unscathed, but Ms Coleby said people have been told to be "much more worried this time".

Ms Coleby said just 5,000 people call Montserrat home, and that she has lived on the island for more than 10 years.

"We have never experienced a hurricane season like this, it is just crazy, it is obviously climate change."

6:09AM

'Everything collapsed'

Anthony Astapha, a lawyer based in Dominica, has told Antigua’s Observer Media Group that the wind was “savage”.

5:35AM

US Virgin Islands braces for impact

US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp says Maria is due to pass late Tuesday night or early Wednesday within 10 miles of the island of St. Croix, which escaped the brunt of Irma's Category 5 clout.

Mapp warned that hurricane-force winds were expected to howl across St. Croix for eight hours, accompanied by up to a foot and a half (46 cm) of rain that would be followed by nearly a week of additional showers.

At an evening news conference, he predicted most islanders would be without electricity for weeks, and that "some folks will not get power in months." A curfew will be imposed starting at 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday, he said.

Mapp asked the public for prayers and urged St. Croix residents take cover in one of three emergency shelters on the island. For those choosing to stay in their homes during the storm, he said, they might consider climbing into a second-floor bathtub and pulling a mattress over them to stay safe in the event they lose their roofs.

Forecasts predict Maria will be the worst storm to hit St. Croix since Hugo, a Category 4 storm, in 1989.

5:15AM

'The dreaded pinhole eye'

The U.S. National Hurricane Centre says the storm will likely intensify over the next 24 hours or longer, noting its eye had shrunk to a compact 10 miles across and warning: "Maria is developing the dreaded pinhole eye."

That generally means an extremely strong hurricane will get even mightier, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. He said it just like when a spinning ice skater brings in their arms and rotates faster.

"You just don't see those in weaker hurricanes," he said.

4:43AM

Too early to assess casualties

A police official, Inspector Pellam Jno Baptiste, says there are no immediate reports of casualties but it is still too dangerous for officers to do a full assessment as the storm rages.

"Where we are, we can't move," he said in a brief phone interview, AP reports.

Dominica authorities have closed schools and government offices and urged people to move from dangerous areas to shelters.

4:37AM

'Dominica has been devastated'

The Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit has told teleSUR the island has been "devastated" by Hurricane Maria. 

4:27AM

Hospital roof 'blown off'

4:18AM

Latest update on hurricane

The eye of Category 5 hurricane Maria is moving over the Caribbean island of Dominica and is expected to approach the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico by Tuesday night and Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Monday.

"Maria is moving toward the west-northwest near 9 miles per hour (15 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue through Wednesday," the Miami-based weather forecaster said. 

4:05AM

'My roof is gone!'

Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he has been rescued after his roof was blown off.

In a series of Facebook posts, he described the sound of galvanized steel roofs tearing off houses on the small rugged island.

2:40AM

Hurricane Maria makes landfall on Dominica

The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the eye wall of Category 5 Maria is moving onshore over Dominica.

2:06AM

Sir Richard Branson: from Irma to Maria

The British billionaire businessman, whose Necker Island home was destroyed by Irma has written a blog about the dangers now posed by Maria. he states:

Read Sir Richard's blog here.

1:20AM

Hurricane Maria strengthens to Category Five

Hurricane Maria has strengthened into a Category 5 storm with top winds of 160 mph. 

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised against travelling to Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat - with hurricane warnings in place for the latter two.

12:51AM

US senator urges airlines to cap fares for people fleeing storm

Ten leading US airlines have been urged to cap airline fares for people fleeing Hurricane Maria, David Millward reports.

Bill Nelson, a Democrat senator from Florida, has written to the airlines' chief executives, asking them to prevent fares spiralling as the hurricane approaches.

Fares soared in the days leading up to Hurricane Irma as it bore down on the Caribbean, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Flights, which would normally have cost only a few hundred dollars, went on sale for several thousand dollars as aircraft filled up.

Airlines were accused of price gouging, with several members of Congress calling on Elaine Chao, the US transportation secretary, to hold an investigation.

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