Gustav strengthens to 'extremely dangerous' category 4 hurricane

Updated August 31, 2008 08:17:00

Deadly hurricane Gustav has intensified into an "extremely dangerous" category four storm as it struck Cuba, after leaving a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean.

"Gustav has continued to strengthen and now has maximum winds near 230 kilometres per hour," the US National Hurricane Centre said.

Evacuations were underway in coastal areas from north-west Cuba to Louisiana in the United States, where Gustav was predicted make landfall Monday or early Tuesday, three years after super-storm Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans.

Katrina was a monstrous Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale in the Gulf of Mexico before hitting the coast near New Orleans as a Category 3 on Aug 29, 2005, with wind speeds up to 209 kilometres per hour.

Its massive storm surge broke through protective levees and flooded 80 percent of the city. New Orleans degenerated into chaos as stranded storm victims waited days for rescue.

About 1,500 people were killed on the US Gulf Coast and $80 billion in damages made Katrina the costliest US natural disaster.

In all, 11.5 million people are in the path of the storm, according to the US Census Bureau.

The US National Hurricane Centre has said Gustav could strengthen into a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm near Cuba, and hit the US Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm.

Civil defence authorities in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province and most of northern Cuba said they were moving 190,000 people to safety, mainly from coastal towns vulnerable to flooding before Gustav hits shore.

Havana, just to the west, also ordered its 2 million population to be on alert and took precautions for heavy winds and rainfall.

The eye of the hurricane passed over the Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth, to the south of the mainland early afternoon Saturday.

Early Saturday, a Caymans official reported heavy damage from Gustav on Cayman Brac, the large eastern island of the Caymans group, with power and water supplies down.

"We're hoping that it's going to settle down enough that we can do some damage assessment," said Ernie Scott, District Commissioner of the Sister Islands.

"I'm expecting the HMS Iron Duke early and they're going to be providing significant assistance in our damage assessment operations," he said, referring to the British Royal Navy frigate in the area.

Hundreds of people fled into shelters on Grand and Little Cayman islands as some areas were affected by flooding.

The US National Hurricane Centre in Miami warned that tides could surge as much as 5.8 meters above normal in areas under the eye of the storm as it passes the Isle of Youth and mainland western Cuba.

Earlier this week Gustav left a path of destruction through Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica, killing at least 81 people.

In Haiti, it left 66 dead plus 10 missing.

In the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight.

And in Jamaica the toll was seven, with many thousands displaced.

Although the heaviest of the rains had subsided, many Jamaicans are worried about returning home.

"It is all wet and I am afraid to sleep inside there," said Kingston housewife Charlene Markland.

Anxiety meanwhile grew on the US Gulf Coast over Gustav's trajectory, with New Orleans beginning mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas Saturday.

Roads out of New Orleans were jammed with people fleeing a potentially disastrous strike on the city just three years after Katrina left some 1,800 dead along the coast.

Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell have evacuated workers from their facilities in the gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.

Meanwhile another tropical storm in the Atlantic well north of Puerto Rico, dubbed Hannah, was forecast to head to the west and strike the central Bahamas by Tuesday and then travel directly toward central Cuba.

- AFP/Reuters

Topics: cyclones, emergency-planning, storm-disaster, cuba, haiti, jamaica, united-states

First posted August 31, 2008 05:05:00