Ike tears through Cuba, heading for Havana (Roundup)

Sep 8, 2008, 11:36 GMT

A handout picture provided by Solovision shows the floods in Baracoa, Cuba, 07 September 2008, after hurricane Ike hit the island\'s northeastern coast. Cubans had prepared for a possible landfall of hurricane Ike after the Meteorology Institute (INSMET), classifying the hurricane as \'very dangerous\', had issued a warning. According to INSMET, hurricane Ike hit the north east coast of Cuba at 21.00 local time (01.00 GMT) on 08 September with maximal winds of 195 km/h and waves reaching up to seven metres. EPA/SOLVISION

Havana - Hurricane Ike tore through eastern Cuba on Monday, driving waves as high as 15 metres ashore and destroying dozens of homes, as forecasters said the storm was heading toward the capital Havana.

Ike was sustaining maximum winds of 165 kilometres per hour as it moved westward and inland on Cuba on Monday, the US National Hurricance Centre (NHC) in Miami reported. Earlier the storm swept destruction across Haiti, the Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

The eye of the storm made landfall about 10 pm Sunday (0200 GMT Monday) near Punta Lucrecia in Hulguin province, the Cuban weather service said.

Ike weakened into a category 3 storm on the five-category Saffir-Simpson scale before it churned up metre-high waves and torrential rains in Cuba, where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.

Cuba also began evacuating an estimated 13,000 international tourists from the Varadero peninsula, 120 kilometres east of Havana.

The Cuban daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde warned on Sunday that Ike could be the biggest threat to the communist island in 50 years.

The Government of Cuba has issued a tropical storm warning for the western provinces of La Habana, Ciudad De Habana, Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth, according to NHC.

NHC also reported that Ike was moving westward at around 24 kilometres per hour, moving over much of central Cuba today and expected to emerge into the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday, in its 0900 GMT Hurricane Ike public advisory.

US news channel CNN reported on Monday that waves as high as 15 metres had crashed ashore at Baracoa in the east of the country, southeast of where Ike had made landfall. At least 80 homes were destroyed as the sea surge moved into the city, CNN reported.

In Haiti, at least 47 people died in the storm, drowning in the city of Cabaret, the Haiti Press news agency reported. Ike's torrential rains caused the Bretelle River to breach its banks and flood the entire city 35 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince.

Ike was the latest storm to hit the poverty-stricken country since mid-August. It brought the number of dead there from Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike to at least 323 people.

In the Turks and Caicos, 80 per cent of the homes were reported damaged or destroyed by Ike, but the 38,000 residents of the string of 30 islands were brought to safety.

Rescue officials were bracing for higher death tolls as the rain continued across the Caribbean.

Forecasters predicted Ike's next port of call would be Florida, where evacuations had already started, first of tourists, then of residents in the Florida Keys, which stretch out toward western Cuba.

US President George W Bush declared Florida a disaster area in advance to free up emergency aid money and deployment of the National Guard when the storm hits.

Uneasy about ongoing tropical storms, the US space agency said it would delay two shuttle missions by two days. The Atlantis shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope is now slated for October 10, and the Endeavour mission to the International Space Station is slated for November 10.

Cuba is still recovering from Hurricane Gustav eight days ago, which left 100,000 people homeless and prompted the Cuban government to ask the US government to suspend its decades-old embargo on exports of desperately needed material for recovery and protection of human life.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a resounding 'no' to the request. Speaking to reporters in Rabat, Morocco, Rice said it would not be 'wise' to lift the embargo now, given the authoritarian passing of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul earlier this year, which she said is 'not acceptable in a Western Hemisphere that is democratic and it is not acceptable for the Cuban people.'