Hurricane Irma, the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, has made landfall in Florida after raking across the northern Caribbean, leaving a trail of devastation in its path and at least 25 dead.

After hitting smaller islands such as Antigua and Barbuda on Tuesday and Wednesday, the storm hit the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday, the Bahamas on Friday and Cuba on Saturday.

The category 4 storm made landfall at Cudjoe Key, about 20 miles east of Key West, at 9.10am local time (1400 BST), according to the National Weather Service.

In Miami, the winds were picking up and downing trees, street signs and power lines, leaving more than 1 million homes without electricity.

The strength of a hurricane is marked by its category on what is known as the Saffir-Simpson scale, which reflects the wind speeds – and hence the level of damage expected once the cyclone strikes land.

While category 1 hurricanes are serious, expected to damage rooftops and bring down trees with wind speeds between 74 and 95mph, Hurricane Irma was initially at the top end of the scale, meeting criteria for a category 5 hurricane: winds of 157mph or more, catastrophic damage, power outages that could last for many weeks, and areas of land rendered uninhabitable for months.

Latest satellite imagery shows Irma crossing the Caribbean islands and heading towards the US mainland

Historically, more storms hit Florida than any other US state

With wind speeds at 185mph, Irma is feared to be worse than Andrew, a category 5 hurricane that struck Florida in 1992.



The strongest hurricane to hit the US after Andrew was Charley, which made landfall in south-western Florida more than a decade later.





Some of the countries in Irma’s path are among the world’s most vulnerable to natural disasters

Irma’s impact will depend on how hard it hits the most populated areas in its path to the mainland, and how well prepared they are to deal with its effects. According to a UN World Risk Report, the Caribbean countries differ starkly in their readiness. Although the United States and Cuba have relatively good infrastructure and plentiful medical professionals, the Dominican Republic is less ready, and Haiti is among the worst-prepared countries in the world to withstand a natural disaster. Initial reports suggest that its path to the north of Haiti spared the country the worst.