KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) - Jamaican military forces searched on Wednesday for dozens of fishermen feared missing after Hurricane Ivan's strike on the Caribbean island last weekend, officials said.
The Jamaica Defense Force sent aircraft and a coastal patrol vessel to the Pedro Cays, a small group of islands off the island's southwest coast, in search of some 33 fishermen who reportedly did not heed warnings to leave ahead of the hurricane.Three other fishermen are feared missing from the southwestern side of the island of 2.7 million people.
Nineteen people were killed when Ivan roared past Jamaica last Friday night, damaging homes, blocking roads and cutting power.
A spokeswoman for the military said officials could not yet confirm that anyone was dead or missing in the Pedro Cays. She said she was awaiting a full report from the patrol vessel.
"The aircraft did fly over the keys and there were quite a few persons on ground and they seemed to ignore the passing aircraft. There were no indications that there were persons in distress," the spokeswoman told Reuters.
Separately, Jamaican emergency preparedness officials said the number of people housed in shelters has climbed to almost 20,000 from 15,000 earlier in the week.
The island's tourism industry -- a valuable source of revenue -- also conceded on Wednesday that damage was worse than initially thought. Considerable damage was done to hotels in the popular Negril area of Westmoreland, tourism officials said.
Ivan, an extremely dangerous hurricane expected to hit the U.S. coast by Thursday morning, has killed at least 68 people, including those in Jamaica, and left a trail of devastation in the Caribbean. It hit especially hard at Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
