This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Residents of the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama have described “nightmarish” scenes as the full force of Hurricane Dorian struck the northernmost part of the Bahamas, killing five people.

Announcing the fatalities on the Abaco Islands, the prime minister, Hubert Minnis, said: “We are in the midst of a historic tragedy”. He called the devastation “unprecedented and extensive”.

As the first person to have died in the storm was reported to be a seven-year-old boy, Lachino Mcintosh, who drowned after his family tried to move from their home, witnesses described large-scale flooding and damage as 185mph (300km/h) winds ripped roofs from buildings.

The Abaco Islands were largely blacked out for most of the night and morning as Dorian made landfall, but residents who managed to contact the local media or family or to post on social media described scenes of devastation after the hurricane made landfall on Elbow Cay just before 1am.

The Bahamas police chief, Samuel Butler, urged people to remain calm and share their GPS coordinates, but he said rescue crews had to wait until weather conditions improved.

“We simply cannot get to you,” he told Bahamas radio station ZNS.

Bahamas Press reported: “Our team from Abaco confirms: the place is a disaster, no business is operable and bodies are floating around Big Cat. The concern is nobody knows how many people died, and they feel when the water subsides some bodies will be washed out to sea.”

Silbert Mills, the owner of the Bahamas Christian Network, said trees and power lines had been torn down across Abaco, home to 17,000 people, which appeared to be the place worst hit by the category 5 storm.

“The winds are howling like we have never, ever experienced before,” said Mills, who was riding out the hurricane with his family in the concrete home he built 41 years ago on central Abaco.

Edward Cunningham, 19, of New Providence told the Guardian that while his house had escaped the winds their island was experiencing flooding.

“Right now, several areas on the island are flooded. Cars are under water, flooded and floating.

“We’ve been directed by the government to stay indoors and away from the coast,” he added.

Jack Pittard, a 76-year-old American who has been visiting the Bahamas for 40 years, also decided to stay put on Abaco for Dorian, which he said was his first hurricane. A short video from Pittard at about 2.30pm on Sunday showed the wind shaking his home and ripping off the siding.

Another resident pleaded for help as her home flooded.

“Anybody who can help me, this is Kendra Williams. I live in Heritage. We are under water; we are up in the ceiling.

“Me and my six grandchildren and my son, we are in the ceiling,” she said in a text message to a friend.

The scale of the flooding was also revealed in social media posts that reported that the main airport on Grand Bahama was under 1.5 metres (5ft) of water.

Tweeting from Grand Bahama in the early hours of the morning, John Forbes wrote: “Tragic flooding, we are stranded!”

“Flooding in Grand Bahama, everything is flooding! … My phone is currently on 41% and I am stranded in 10 feet water,” Forbes added in later tweets.

As concern mounted across the Caribbean nation, relatives posted pictures of missing family members in communities in Abaco reported to be underwater.

One of the most dramatic accounts was carried by the Nassau Guardian, which spoke to Gertha Joseph, 35, a resident of the Marsh Harbour community on Abaco, during the worst of the storm before telephone communication was cut off.

Joseph described the conditions in Marsh Harbour, the second location hit by Dorian, as a nightmare. “Everyone is in the living room right now and the roof is about to lift,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out where to go next.”

Joseph said more than 50 people, including young children, were crowded into the small house praying and hoping for the best. “I can’t describe nothing right now because of what I’m going through right now,” she said. “I’m just going to keep praying. Everyone, please pray for us. [It’s] me and my baby. Everyone got safe in our apartment building, but we’re stuck right here.

“My baby’s only four months old. Please pray for us. I’m begging y’all. Pray for us. My apartment building, as we stayed in, the whole roof came off. We are staying right here. People are trying to make it to the other side where this house is. But some people, the water just took them and those are the only people that [made] it over there. Some people didn’t get to make it.”

Joseph was later rescued. “Some guy helped me out. He put [her son in] this plastic thing and he swam across with him because I can’t swim. Then the guy came back to help me across the water.”

Vernal Cooper, another resident of Marsh Harbour, told CNN: “There’s damages everywhere around my area. Cars and houses destroyed. This is what’s left of Marsh Harbour.”