A bridge collapsed in southeast Haiti under a river swollen from fierce winds and rains, killing at least four people on Thursday as Hurricane Dennis lashed Caribbean coastlines.
Winds of up to 216kph are threatening to intensify as Dennis makes a beeline for Cuba before hitting the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow or Monday, raising fears that oil supplies will be disrupted by the fourth storm in as many weeks.
At least four people were killed when the wooden and metal bridge collapsed in Haiti's southwest town of Grand Goave. Witnesses said floodwaters forced the river to rush over the bridge. At least three vehicles were swept away.
PHOTO: AP
Elsewhere in deforested Haiti, wind gusts uprooted a palm tree and flung it into a mud hut, killing one person and injuring three in southern Les Cayes town, the Red Cross said.
"Dangerous hurricane" Dennis should pass over central Cuba within 24 hours, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Several rivers burst their banks in eastern Jamaica, flooding roads and stranding many residents in their homes, Morant Bay Mayor Joan Spencer said. The main road linking the eastern part of the island with the capital of Kingston was flooded, preventing rescue workers from getting to the area, she told local radio.
"We are in a terrible situation right now," Spencer said.
About 10 percent of Jamaica's population was left without electricity, the Jamaica Power and Services Company told local radio.
In Cuba, where the military-style government has been praised by the UN for extensive hurricane preparedness, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the island's southeast, civil defense officials said on state television.
Cuban President Fidel Castro appeared on the program to express concerns about the possible effects on an outdated electrical system. Blackouts have lasted up to 10 hours in some areas in recent weeks.
"The country is investing about US$500 million," in the project to renovate the system "and in the middle of that, here comes this barbarous" storm, Castro said.
The Cayman Islands and Cuba were under hurricane warnings, including the US detention camp holding some 520 terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay.
The southern Florida Keys went on hurricane warning on Thursday afternoon and ordered tourists to flee, while the southern Florida peninsula was on tropical storm watch, expecting stormy conditions within 36 hours.
Jamaican Prime Minister Percival Patterson urged people in low-lying areas of his country to evacuate.
"Let us all work together in unity so that we will be spared the worst," he said in a national radio broadcast.
But only about 1,000 of the 2.6 million people were in shelters late in the afternoon, when local forecasters said the eye of the storm was passing 80km north of Port Antonio on Jamaica's northeast coast.
Cuba was evacuating more than 2,500 tourists and workers from Cayo Largo del Sur, in the string of keys along the southeast, the National Information Agency reported. Most tourists were taken to other hotels in Havana and Varadero beach resort in the north.
There were no immediate plans to evacuate detainees or troops from the US detention center's Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, on Cuba's extreme southeast end, General Jay Hood said.
At the camp, about 135m from the ocean, troops put heavy steel shutters on sea-facing cell windows as heavy surf sent splashes of salt spray higher than the razor wire fence. Officials said Camp Delta was built to withstand winds up to 150kph.
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