It's been reported that at least nine people are known to have died as a result Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms recorded in the last century.

The hurricane has swept across the Caribbean leaving destruction in its wake, battering Puerto Rico and Barbuda with torrential rain and gusts of up to 160 kmh, as it continues across the islands towards Florida.

Barbuda Prime Minister, Gaston Browne said: "Barbuda is literally rubble. The entire housing stock was damaged. It is just a total devastation."

Homes and businesses have been destroyed, buildings flattened and tons of sand has been shifted onto land.

Aid workers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic are working to evacuate people from coastal areas and into temporary shelters before the storm hits.

On Thursday morning, the eye of the storm was just north of the coast of Puerto Rico, where more than 900,000 people have been left without power.

Moving at around 26kmh, Hurricane Irma is on a collision course with the Bahamas and the British overseas territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Hurricane Jose is expected to follow a similar path when it arrives over the weekend.

The National Hurricane Centre has elevated Hurricane Irma to a Category 5 storm.

Winds from the aggressive weather phenomenon are set to reach 175kmph. 

'Irma is expected to affect the northeastern Leeward Islands as a dangerous major hurricane, accompanied by life-threatening wind, storm surge, and rainfall impacts,' according to the NOAA’s National Hurricane Centre. 

Irma is expected to make landfall on the Leeward Island tonight.

'Irma is expected to bring deteriorating and perhaps devastating conditions across the Leeward Islands into Wednesday,' AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.

A number of populated Caribbean islands are in the current path of the storm. 

These include Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. 

'We are expecting very rough and dangerous surf along with damaging tropical-storm-force and hurricane-force winds over the northern Leeward Islands, and tropical-storm-force winds over the southern Leewards to perhaps the northern Windward Islands, mostly in gusts,' Kottlowski told AccuWeather.

A number of flights to and from the Caribbean have been cancelled.