State employees evacuate turtle eggs from the beach to protect them from the incoming Hurricane Beryl, in Cancun, Mexico, on Wednesday.

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — Hurricane Beryl ripped off roofs in Jamaica, wrecked fishing boats in Barbados and damaged 95 percent of homes on a pair of islands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines before rumbling toward the Cayman Islands and taking aim at Mexico's Caribbean coast.

The death toll from the powerful hurricane climbed to at least 10, but it is widely expected to rise further as communications come back online across drenched islands damaged by flooding and deadly winds.

What had been the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, weakened slightly but remained a major hurricane. By Wednesday evening, the eye of the spiraling hurricane was located about 161 kilometers west of Kingston, Jamaica, according to the US National Hurricane Center, as the storm's core headed toward the Cayman Islands.

The center warned that Beryl will likely make landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as early as Thursday night.

In the fishing village of Punta Allen, in the state of Quintana Roo, residents moved boats inland for safety, while navy officers implored reluctant residents to evacuate.

In tourist epicenter Cancun, an environmental agency worked to gather eggs from sea turtles' nests for their protection. Tourists soaked up the sun's rays while they still could.

Meanwhile, workers filled bags with sand and boarded up doors and windows of businesses for protection. Officials said supplies of wooden boards were dwindling as Cancun locals and tourists prepared for Beryl's arrival.

Laura Velazquez, head of Mexico's civil protection agency, encouraged tourists in Cancun and nearby Tulum to hunker down in hotel basements once the hurricane approaches, in comments to local broadcaster Milenio.

Destructive potential

The storm had already shown its destructive potential across a long swath of the southeastern Caribbean. Beryl's eyewall brushed by Jamaica's southern coast on Wednesday afternoon knocking out power and ripping roofs off homes.

A woman died in Jamaica's Hanover Parish after a tree fell on her home, Richard Thompson, acting director-general at Jamaica's disaster agency, said in an interview on local news.

Nearly a thousand Jamaicans were in shelters by Wednesday evening, Thompson added.

The island's main airports were closed and streets were mostly empty after Prime Minister Andrew Holness issued a nationwide curfew for Wednesday.

The loss of life and damage brought by Beryl underscores the consequences of a warmer Atlantic Ocean, which scientists cite as a telltale sign of human-caused climate change fueling extreme weather that differs from past experience.

Additional confirmed fatalities so far include at least three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a senior official told Reuters, where Union Island has suffered severe destruction of over 90 percent of buildings.

In Grenada, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell described "Armageddon-like" conditions with no power and widespread destruction, while also confirming three deaths.