Rescue workers in the Bahamas continued their task of searching for bodies and survivors amid the destruction of Hurricane Dorian as police urged residents to register details of those still missing.
Police said Monday the current death toll from the storm is 45, but expect the number of fatalities to rise.
"There are many more persons presumed missing and we are appealing to the public to file Missing Persons reports," police said in a statement late Sunday.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are believed to be missing following the storm, which struck a week ago as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of up to 320 kph.
Thousands of people from the hardest hit islands, Abaco and Great Bahama, have poured into the capital, Nassau, overflowing shelters there. The country's National Emergency Agency urged people who are able, to take in storm victims. It also said it was working to set up shelters across the islands. The number of homeless is estimated to be 70,000.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued temporary flight restrictions Sunday to U.S. aircraft over the Bahamas to reserve the airspace for search and rescue missions. The FAA says its order came at the request of the Bahamian government.
The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mark Green, toured Abaco and Great Bahama islands. He said parts look as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.
"We recognize that there's a long road ahead but we're going to work closely with the prime minister and his government to make sure that we help provide immediate relief," Green said Sunday.
The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard are bringing in what is needed most — food, water sanitation, and emergency shelter. Relief has also poured in from the United Nations, Red Cross, British naval ships, and private cruise lines.
Dorian is now over the North Atlantic, but before it moved out to sea it got in its last licks in Canada.
The storm battered the Canadian Maritime provinces and far-eastern Quebec with tropical storm-force winds, tearing off the roofs of homes and buildings, uprooting trees, and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.
No Canadian storm deaths have been reported.
Dorian also lashed the Carolinas on the U.S. East Coast, destroying homes, flooding beach resorts, and spawning more than 20 tornadoes that caused further damage.
