Cuba Escapes Ivan's Wrath

Cuba appeared to have escaped Hurricane Ivan relatively lightly today as the worst Caribbean storm in a decade passed over its sparsely populated western tip and spared the island's main urban areas.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or serious damage to buildings. The 162mph winds tore through the tobacco growing heartland for Cuba's famed cigar industry, but planting there does not begin until next month. "I think we are going to escape the worst of it," grower Alejandro Robaina told the Associated Press.

Sugar, Cuba's main export, is mostly grown in the east.

Trees and power lines were brought down in the western provincial capital of Pinar del Rio. More than 1.3 million people had earlier been evacuated from a region still recovering from Hurricane Charley.

Whatever the damage, Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro, has said he will not accept US aid. After Hurricane Charley, he rejected Washington's offer of $50,000 [£28,000]. "We won't accept a penny from them," he told state television. "Even if they offered all that was necessary, $100m, $200m, we would not accept."

Before hitting Cuba, the eastern end of Ivan battered the Cayman Islands with 20ft (6 metre) waves crashing against the sea wall at the port in George Town.

Residents said parts of the islands were under 8ft of water. Locals and British expatriates described roofs "peeling off like they were fastened on with Velcro" and trucks bobbing on the rising floodwater like bath toys.

All three islands were without electricity, the online news service Cayman Net News reported.

"The glass doors at Cayman Net News thankfully resisted the worst of the flooding, even though at times it was like looking at an aquarium as the water rose some 3ft outside," the service said.

Ivan continued its western course after leaving Cuba and is now gathering strength as it approaches eastern Mexico and the southern United States.

World oil prices rose as companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico prepared for disruption to gas and oil operations. Shell said on Sunday that it had shut off-shore production wells and evacuated workers.

Mexico began evacuating 12,000 residents and tourists from low-lying tourist areas around Cancun on the eastern seaboard of the Yucatan peninsula as choppy seas and heavy rain arrived.

Authorities in the Florida Keys lifted their evacuation order and allowed residents to return, but officials said that at least 1.7 million people living in mobile homes or in low-lying areas on the east coast of Florida were at risk.

It is estimated that the hurricane has killed at least 65 people. The Pan American Health Organisation said 37 people had died in Grenada and 19 in Jamaica. Five people are thought to have died in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, four in the Dominican Republic and three in Haiti.

In Jamaica, stores and shelters filled with more than 15,000 people were running short of food, according to Nadene Newsome of Jamaica's emergency relief agency. Officials planned to fly food into cut-off areas by helicopter. About 98% of the island is still without power and 40 roads were blocked by debris.