The government in the Bahamas says the death toll from Hurricane Dorian has climbed to 50.
Health Minister Duane Sands confirmed the toll Monday to NBC News.
Officials have warned that the number of deaths is likely to rise as security forces and other teams search devastated areas of the northern Bahamas.
The government also announced a National Emergency Management Agency telephone hotline (242-322-6731) where Bahamians can call to report family members who have been unaccounted for since the storm.
At least three abandoned bodies in the devastated neighborhood called "The Mudd" in Marsh Harbour remained exposed to the elements on Sunday, a week after Dorian tore through the Abacos, laying waste to much of the islands.
Genoise Arnold, a self-employed labourer and neighbour of the three who died in the storm said nobody had come to remove the deceased.
Arnold said a neighbour clinging to a tree during the height of the storm, succumbed to flood waters when the storm surge crested through the low-lying neighbourhood.
Others were caught under their homes when winds turned the structures into splinters, leaving the cowering residents exposed to the elements and ultimately ending with their deaths.
The huge debris piles left by the storm are a challenging landscape for search and recovery teams, who cannot use bulldozers or other heavy equipment to search for the dead.
That makes recovery and identification a slow process for the forensic teams searching through the rubble.
Dorian struck a week ago as a Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds, and then hovered just offshore for more than a day and a half, obliterating thousands of homes.
Meanwhile, more than 900 members of the Bahamian police and military are on Abaco and Grand Bahama islands to help with hurricane relief, officials said.
The government also says 120 Jamaican security personnel arrived in the Bahamas on Saturday evening and 100 troops from Trinidad and Tobago were arriving Sunday as part of the aid effort in the wake of Hurricane Dorian.
The Bahamas says "large numbers of security forces" from Britain and the United States are already involved in search, rescue and recovery operations.
