A body is carried out of a hurricane ravaged community in the Bahamas on Monday, September 9. (Photo via CNN)
The official death toll in the Bahamas from Hurricane Dorian is now at 45 but a newspaper in the islands claims the actual number of people killed in the storm is in the thousands.
A statement from the Royal Bahamas Police Force said 45 bodies have been recovered - 37 in Abaco Islands and eight in Grand Bahama.
The Bahamas Press on Monday reported that observers on those two hardest hit islands say more than 3,000 people could have died in the hurricane.
Bahamian 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.
Reports from survivors also point to a much higher death toll.
The Bahamas Government has dismissed assertions that it has been suppressing the death toll from Hurricane Dorian.
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