AKIPRESS.COM - Hurricane Irma killed eight people on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and also caused devastation on other islands on Thursday as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida, Reutersreoported.

Television footage of the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. Power was knocked out there and on Saint Barthelemy.

“It is an enormous disaster, 95 percent of the island is destroyed, I am in shock,” Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on Saint Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said eight were killed and the toll was likely to rise in the coming hours.

“We did not have the time yet to explore all the shores,” Collomb told Franceinfo radio, adding that 23 people were also injured. In all, at least 10 people were reported killed by Irma on four islands.