US emergency workers recover more bodies in Bahamas

U.S. emergency workers on Monday found five bodies in the debris left by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, and they said they expected to find more victims a week after the devastating storm hit.

Bahamians, meanwhile, were also searching the rubble, salvaging the few heirlooms left intact by the Category 5 storm that, according to the official count over the weekend, has killed at least 44 people.

Members of the Gainesville, Florida, fire department were operating in the remains of The Mudd, the Bahamas' largest Haitian immigrant community.

Homes lay in ruins one week after Hurricane Dorian hit The Mudd neighborhood, in the Marsh Harbor area of Abaco, Bahamas, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Dorian, the most powerful hurricane in the northwestern Bahamas' recorded history, has killed at least 44 people in Bahamas as of Sunday, Sept. 8, according to the government. (AP PhotoFernando Llano)

"We've probably hit at most one-tenth of this area, and so far we found five human remains," said Joseph Hillhouse, assistant chief of Gainesville Fire Rescue. "I would say based off of our sample size, we're going to see more."

After the Americans recovered bodies, Bahamas police and medical authorities moved in to conduct autopsies and fly the remains from Abaco island, in the northwest Bahamas, south to the capital, Nassau.

"There are still more bodies," said Genoise Arnold, a resident of The Mudd who said that at least three neighbors died in the storm.

Members of the fire rescue team Task Force 8, from Gainesville, Florida, search for bodies one week after Hurricane Dorian hit The Mudd neighborhood in the Marsh Harbor area of Abaco Island, Bahamas, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Dorian, the most powerful hurricane in the northwestern Bahamas' recorded history, has killed at least 44 people in Bahamas as of Sunday, Sept. 8, according to the government. (AP PhotoFernando Llano)

Arnold said one neighbor clung to a tree during the storm and succumbed to flood waters that surged through the low-lying neighborhood. Others were caught under their homes when winds turned the structures into splinters, leaving the cowering residents exposed, he said.

The huge debris piles left by the storm are challenging for search and recovery teams, which cannot use bulldozers or other heavy equipment to search for the dead. That makes recovery and identification a slow process.

The Bahamas government has announced a telephone hotline where Bahamians can call to report family members who have been missing since the storm.

A Bahamas coroners team carries a body out of The Mudd neighborhood in the Marsh Harbor area of Abaco Island in the Bahamas in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Dorian, the most powerful hurricane in the northwestern Bahamas' recorded history, has killed at least 44 people in Bahamas as of Sunday, Sept. 8, according to the government. (AP PhotoFernando Llano)

At least five deaths have been blamed on the storm in the southeastern United States and one in Puerto Rico.

In Rocky Creek, a settlement of a few families on the east end of battered Grand Bahama island, members of the Reckley family picked through what remained of nearly a dozen homes that had been inhabited by their extended family.

The Reckleys and their assorted spouses, children and in-laws lived off the income from three boats they use for fishing and for providing tourist excursions from a pristine beachfront facing the turquoise Caribbean.

Volunteers cut up electricity poles blocking a road in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian on the outskirts of Pelican Point in East Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019. Electricity remains down in Grand Bahama and there is still no running water one week after the storm hit. (AP PhotoTim Aylen)

The family rode out the storm in nearby government shelters, and returned to find their smashed homes.

The motors of the Reckleys' boats were also destroyed. The entire extended family together earned about $800 a month, not enough to buy insurance, said Synobia Reckley, 25, who traveled from the island's main city, Freeport, to help her family.

"It hurt. This is all I know," Reckley said. "We lost a lot of old pictures. ... We don't have nothing to look back on. It's just heartbreaking."

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A Bahamas coroners team carries a body out of The Mudd neighborhood in the Marsh Harbor area of Abaco, Bahamas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Dorian, the most powerful hurricane in the northwestern Bahamas' recorded history, has killed at least 44 people in Bahamas as of Sunday, Sept. 8, according to the government. (AP PhotoFernando Llano)

The only aid they have received so far is from foreign aid groups and U.S. firefighters, said Reckley's husband, Dexter Edwards, a heavy equipment operator.

"Right now, ain't much joy. You just gotta try to keep your head up," Edwards said. "There's always a future. Only thing we can do right now is rebuild — rebuild and try to move forward."

Volunteers from the Royal Caribbean's Go Team load water and relief supplies on to trucks on the quayside of Freeport Harbour in Grand Bahama, Bahamas, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019, in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. Electricity remains down in Grand Bahama and there is still no running water one week after the storm hit. (AP PhotoTim Aylen)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)