Truemors
Panic is spreading across the US Gulf coast as Hurricane Ike looks set to wreak havoc in Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. Ike has become "extremely dangerous", say experts.
Hurricane Ike strengthened to an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm in the Atlantic today, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned, threatening island nations and raising the prospect of another huge storm slamming the US Gulf Coast.
Packing sustained winds near 215 kilometres per hour, powerful Ike was about 145 kilometres east of Grand Turk Island near the southern Bahamas shortly before 2100 GMT, and was expected to barrel into Cuba Sunday or Monday, the Miami-based NHC said in an advisory.
"Ike is now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane on the (level one to five) Saffir-Simpson scale," the NHC said.
The powerful cyclone was churning west-southwest at 24 kilometres per hour and was on track to slam Turks and Caicos and the southern Bahamas late Saturday or early Sunday with as much as 30 centimetres of rain.
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