Shawdesh Desk: The United States Coast Guard and Britain’s Royal Navy airlifted survivors and ferried in emergency supplies on Wednesday as the death toll from hurricane Dorian’s rampage through the Bahamas rose to 20.

The United Nations said 70,000 people on Grand Bahama and Abaco island — virtually the entire population — were in ‘immediate need’ of aid while the government confirmed the grim new victim count, which was expected to rise further.

‘At this point we are starting to get a more vivid picture of the loss of life, at least in Abaco, and the loss of life in Grand Bahama,’ health minister Duane Sands said, quoted by local and US media.

‘So, the toll has risen to just 20 persons in Abaco and Grand Bahama thus far. But bear in mind that search and rescue exercises, exploration of homes that were flooded, is just now starting.’

Shelter, safe drinking water, food and medicine were urgently needed for some 50,000 people on Grand Bahama and between 15,000 and 20,000 on Abaco, UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said after a meeting with Bahamian prime minister Hubert Minnis.

‘Speed is of the essence,’ Red Cross official Stephen McAndrew said of rescue operations on the two northernmost islands in the Bahamas archipelago which were pummelled by one of the strongest Atlantic storms on record.

People on Grand Bahama Island were using jet skis and boats to pluck victims from homes flooded and pulverised by heavy rain and lashing winds from the monster storm.

US Coast Guard and Royal Navy helicopters were conducting medical evacuations, aerial assessments to help coordinate relief efforts, and reconnaissance flights to assess damage.

US president Donald Trump spoke by telephone to the Bahamian leader and pledged US assistance, the White House said.

‘A big section of the Bahamas was hit like few people have seen before,’ Trump said. ‘They need a big hand.’

Bahamas PM Hubert Minnis lamented that the ‘generational devastation’ wrought by hurricane Dorian, as it was upgraded to a major Category 3 storm while bearing down on the Carolinas on the US east coast.

Minnis confirmed the storm’s death toll had risen to at least 20 during a news conference in which he described the unthinkable damage that parts of his island nation had sustained.