The Hindu : International : Hurricane threatens U.S. oil installations

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Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

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International

Hurricane threatens U.S. oil installations

Eye of the storm: Hurricane Ivan, swirling with winds of 160 mph, is photographed some 230 miles above the Earth from aboard the International Space Station late on Monday. - AP

PINAR DEL RIO (CUBA), SEPT. 14. The massive Hurricane Ivan slammed into Cuba's sparsely populated western tip with the worst of its 256-kmph winds and moved into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, threatening U.S. oil installations and prompting thousands of Americans to flee its catastrophic strength.

From Florida's north-western Panhandle to Louisiana, people readied to flee. Five Florida counties urged or, in some cases, ordered residents to leave on Tuesday as Ivan spun out of the Caribbean, where it cut a deadly swath through Grenada, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba.

Fiercest storm

Ivan, one of the fiercest storms ever recorded in the region, pounded the heartland of Cuba's famed cigar industry on Monday, with its eastern eyewall brushing over the island's western tip.

Earlier, it lashed Grand Cayman island with giant waves. It tore away part of a hotel on Cayman's famed Seven Mile Beach, seen in the fly-over of an AP-chartered aircraft over the island on Monday.

The storm has killed at least 68 persons in seven islands or countries the Caribbean, devastated Grenada and badly battered Jamaica's Negril resort.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or serious damage in Cuba.

``We are so relieved,'' said Miguel Rivero, a 42-year-old restaurant worker in Havana. ``If it had come through here it would have been a true disaster.''

Jose Rubiera, head of Cuba's National Meteorology Institute, announced on state television that the edge of the eye crossed the island's tip around 6:45 p.m. (local time) on Monday. All national and international airports would be closed until Wednesday.

The Cuban President, Fidel Castro, reiterated he would not accept any hurricane aid from the United States, saying: ``We won't accept a penny from them.''

One million evacuated

The huge storm attacked two islands simultaneously on Monday: Its western fringe drenched fields in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province as waves 6 meters tall were slamming the sea wall at the port in George Town, Grand Cayman.

Some 1.3 million of Cuba's 11.3 million people were evacuated from the western region still recovering from Hurricane Charley. As Ivan moved in, Cuban state television reported waves up to 5 metres crashing onto the southern coast of the Isla de Juventud, or Isle of Youth, southwest of the main island. Ham radio operators reported downed trees and power lines, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Ivan has killed at least 15 people in Jamaica, 39 in Grenada, five in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, four in the Dominican Republic and three in Haiti. — AP

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