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Hurricane Matthew kills at least 17, takes aim at Bahamas, U.S.

05 October 2016 19:36 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, powered toward the Bahamas and Florida's eastern coast early on Wednesday after battering Haiti and Cuba with torrential rains and killing at least 17 people, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The hurricane, which the United Nations said created the worst humanitarian crisis to hit struggling Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, whipped Cuba and Haiti with 140 mile-per-hour (230 kph) winds on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts.

In the United States, millions of people were urged to evacuate the southeastern coast and Florida Governor Rick Scott warned residents to prepare for a possible direct hit that could be catastrophic.

Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated from the path of the Matthew, which caused severe flooding and killed four people in the Dominican Republic as well as at least 13 in Haiti, the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola.

The storm carved a path of devastation through western Haiti, destroying houses, dumping boats and debris on coastal roads and heavily flooding residential areas.

Matthew was a Category Four hurricane through Tuesday but was downgraded to Category Three early on Wednesday, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

Maximum sustained winds eased to about 120 mph (193 kph) by late Wednesday morning but the NHC said the hurricane was likely to strengthen again slightly in the coming days.

The eye of the storm was about 105 miles (169 km) south of Long Island in the Bahamas on Wednesday morning and it was expected to be very near the east coast of Florida by Thursday evening, the NHC said.

"Everyone in our state must prepare now for a direct hit," Scott said at a news conference in Tallahassee. "If Matthew directly impacts Florida, the destruction could be catastrophic and you need to be prepared."

It was difficult to assess the severity of Matthew's impact in Haiti because it knocked out communications in many of the worst-affected areas, including the main bridge that links much of the country to the southwest peninsula.