A 6.7 mag­ni­tude earth­quake struck the north-east­ern Caribbean at 8:38 am to­day, cen­tred 222 kilo­me­tres east of Guade­loupe at a depth of 12 kilo­me­tres, ac­cord­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre (UWI-SRC).

Amid fears of es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the re­gion and the ar­rival of a US Navy ves­sel in Port of Spain, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment has sought to down­play con­cerns about the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary pres­ence in the coun­try.

Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa in­ten­si­fied to Cat­e­go­ry 5 strength Mon­day as it neared Ja­maica with up to 30 inch­es (76 cen­time­tres) of rain and a life-threat­en­ing storm surge.

The wider Caribbean has of­fered to be­come in­ter­me­di­aries be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela amid their cur­rent height­ened ten­sions and the mil­i­tary build-up in the re­gion, which has trig­gered deep con­cerns about the threat of war, and has now prompt­ed moves to pre­vent it.

Venezuela has ac­cused Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gov­ern­ment of be­ing un­der US con­trol and part of an ef­fort that could spark a full mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion against Venezuela. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment has un­der­scored the rea­sons for the vis­it of the USS Grave­ly and stressed that it val­ues the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with the peo­ple of Venezuela.

The ar­rival of the USS Grave­ly in Port-of-Spain just af­ter 9 am yes­ter­day cre­at­ed a stir among cu­ri­ous on­look­ers, who still be­lieved it was not too late for the Gov­ern­ment to adopt a neu­tral po­si­tion in the ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Rishi Sama­roo and Chad ‘Char­po’ Joseph, two Trinidad and To­ba­go men whose rel­a­tives be­lieve were killed in a US airstrike, may not be dead but could be miss­ing.

Mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to help al­le­vi­ate de­lays that are ex­pect­ed to be caused by the pres­ence of USS Grave­ly at the Port of Port-of-Spain this week.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Trinidad and To­ba­go is ready to as­sist its stu­dents in Ja­maica as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa ap­proach­es and even af­ter it de­parts, de­spite claims that the Gov­ern­ment failed to bring stu­dents home on time.

Ja­maican cit­i­zens and of­fi­cials are brac­ing for what may be the strongest hur­ri­cane they have faced in decades.

Thou­sands of mas­quer­aders flood­ed the Claude Noel High­way on Sun­day as the Pa­rade of the Bands took full con­trol of To­ba­go Car­ni­val, de­liv­er­ing a high-en­er­gy street ex­pe­ri­ence that moved with lit­tle de­lay and en­joyed strong crowd sup­port from start to fin­ish.

To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art says au­thor­i­ties will shut down il­le­gal night par­ties at sea im­me­di­ate­ly, fol­low­ing the sink­ing of an­oth­er ves­sel at No Man’s Land on Sat­ur­day night.