Rechercher

/ languages

Choisir langue
 

Caribbean/US

Hurricane claims 85 lives, heads for Cuba

Article published on the 2008-08-30 Latest update 2008-08-30 10:14 TU

The centre of Tropical Storm Gustav over the Caribbean Sea in this NOAA satellite image taken early 29 August 2008. (Photo: Reuters/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Handout )

The centre of Tropical Storm Gustav over the Caribbean Sea in this NOAA satellite image taken early 29 August 2008.
(Photo: Reuters/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Handout )

As Tropical Storm Gustav becomes a hurricane, it has claimed at least 11 lives in Jamaica, where up to 4,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. The storm has ravaged the Caribbean, killing at least 85 people and was headed for western Cuba early Saturday before moving on to the US Gulf coast.

Print the article

Send the article

Comments on article


Cuba's western province of Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth are on the highest level of alert and thousands of people have been asked to leave their homes.

The Cuban authorities have a record of well-organised evacuation but the country's ageing housing stock is expected to suffer badly from Gustav's winds which have reached 130 kilometers per hour, with higher gusts.

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said on Friday that between 3,500 and 4,000 people were displaced by the storm and at least 11 killed.

"I am concerned that there are still a number of persons who are still unaccounted for," he said, adding that some schools will start the academic year late because they are being used to house displaced people.

Gustav, which hit the Cayman Islands late Friday with no casualties reported, has killed 66 people in Haiti, with ten people missing, and eight in the Dominican Republic.

On the US Gulf coast, the New Orleans authorities have started bussing out people who wish to leave the city.

British oil group BP, ConocoPhillips and Anglo-Dutch Shell evacuated workers from their installations in the Gulf on Thursday. ExxonMobile says that it is "identifying personnel for possible evacuation to shore".

About a quarter of US oil installations are in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Department of Energy said Friday that the government is prepared to use its strategic oil reserve if oil installations are damaged.