Cuba Braces Itself for Hurricane Ivan

Cubans today evacuated their homes and waited for Hurricane Ivan, which has gained strength, to hit the island with 260kmph (160mph) winds and a storm surge of up to 7.5 metres (25ft).

The storm, which has already killed at least 65 people in the Caribbean, picked up speed as it left the Cayman Islands, threatening to sweep across Cuba later today as a category five hurricane - the strongest on the scale.

Latest reports suggested the eye of the storm would miss the island, but around 1.3 million Cubans were evacuated from their homes, mosttaking refuge in the sturdier houses of relatives, co-workers or neighbours.

Ivan is expected to miss Florida and instead hit Alabama as it continues its progress towards the US coast.

Cubans will have to face the hurricane, which has damaged around 50% of the homes on Grand Cayman and 90% on Grenada, without hope of aid from the US government.

The Cuban president, Fidel Castro, this week reiterated that he would not accept aid from the US, which employs an economic blockade against Cuba's government.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Charley last month, the US government offered $50,000 (£27,000), a sum derided by Cuba's official state newspaper, Granma, as pointless. The US president, George Bush, offered $2bn to help Florida in the wake of hurricanes Charley and Frances.

Mr Castro told Granma that his government had not accepted the money and that, this time, the US should "save themselves the hypocrisy of offering aid to Cuba".

"The only thing we can allow is a total end to the blockade and the economic aggression of our country. We are going to demonstrate that we are capable of resisting this hurricane as well - and others if they arrive - and how we can reconstruct the country with our own resources," Granma quoted him as saying.

Those resources will, however, be slim. An NBC correspondent in Havana reported that local residents had no plywood sheeting with which to cover windows, and no reserves of cash to stock up on groceries.

Car batteries that could be used to power a home sold out after Hurricane Charley, and electricity had still not been restored to some parts of the island following that storm.

This weekend, Ivan pummelled the Cayman Islands, with fierce winds ripping off roofs and floodwaters swamping homes.

Jamaica on Saturday escaped a direct hit, but still suffered heavy damage. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the Cayman Islands, but at least 15 people were killed in Jamaica, and 39 in Grenada.

Ivan also killed five people in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, and four children in the Dominican Republic.

In Jamaica, waves more than nine metres high yesterday broke in the north-western resort town of Negril, crashing over a seawall and the rooftops of single-story hotel bungalows and restaurants. Uprooted palm trees lay on top buildings and against walls, while armed security guards kept watch.

Justin Uzzell, 35, speaking by telephone from his fifth-floor refuge in an office building on Grand Cayman island yesterday, said: "It's as bad as it can possibly get. It's a horizontal blizzard. The air is just foam."

Ivan's sustained winds weakened to 150mph (240kmph) as they neared the wealthy British territory, and then intensified late on Sunday as the storm headed towards western Cuba. Storms of more than 155mph (248kmph) are category five on the Saffir-Simpson scale - the highest level, and capable of catastrophic damage.

Officials had yet to assess the level of damage, but Donnie Ebanks, the deputy chairman of the Cayman Islands' national hurricane committee, estimated that between one fourth and half of the 15,000 homes in Grand Cayman had suffered some damage.

The Hurricane Centre said ham radio operators on Grand Cayman reported people standing on roofs because the sea in the low-lying island had surged up to 8ft (2.5 metres) above normal tide levels. The eye of the storm did not make a direct hit, passing just south of the island, Rafael Mojica, a Hurricane Centre meteorologist, said.

Nevertheless, emergency officials said residents from all parts of the island reported severe damage and flooding as Ivan's winds and driving rain lashed Grand Cayman. "We know there is damage, and it is severe," Wes Emanuel, of the Cayman Islands' government information service, said.

Mexico issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning for the north-eastern Yucatan Peninsula, and hundreds abandoned fishing settlements on the nearby island of Holbox. The resort city of Cancun opened shelters and closed beaches.

While forecasts predicted that the storm would bypass the Florida Keys, officials kept an evacuation order in place for the island chain's 79,000 residents.

In Cuba, the threatened area included Havana, where traffic was yesterday light as most people took shelter. The hurricane is the most powerful storm to threaten Cuba since the 1959 revolution.

Dozens of families in La Coloma, on the western coast, bundled up clothes, medicine, furniture and television sets before boarding buses to find shelter. "I feel sad leaving my house on its own," Ricardo Hernandez, a 44-year-old fisherman, said. "But I have to protect myself and save the lives of my family."

Iberia Cruz, 50, who lost her home in a hurricane two years ago, moved her valuables to a nearby building. "We've lived through others, and that is why we are afraid," she said. "The ocean could pierce the town."

The last category five storm to hit the Caribbean was Hurricane David, which killed more than 1,000 people and devastated the Dominican Republic in 1979.

Only three category five storms are known to have hit the US. The last was Hurricane Andrew, which hit South Florida in 1992, killing 43 people and causing more than $30bn damage.