south, prompting the hard-hit country to postpone a long-awaited presidential election.
The powerful
Category 3 hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, whipped
Cuba and Haiti with 140 mile-per-hour (230 kph) winds and torrential rains on
Tuesday, pummeling towns and destroying livestock, crops and homes.
In the United States,
more than 1.5 million 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 Matthew, which caused
severe flooding and killed four people in the Dominican Republic as well as at
least 22 in Haiti. The two countries share the island of Hispaniola.
The storm carved a
path of devastation through southwestern Haiti, dumping boats and debris on
coastal roads hit by surging seas and flooding residential areas heavily.
Some 80 percent of
homes were damaged in Haiti's Sud Department, which has a population of more
than 700,000, a government official said in a meeting with U.N. officials. Some
11,000 people were in shelters in the province.
In the town of
Jeremie, people were cooking and sleeping outside because most houses were
either knocked down or severely damaged. Similar scenes were reported across
the coastal towns of the south.
Haiti, the poorest
country in the Americas, had been set to hold a repeatedly postponed
presidential election on Sunday, but the country's electoral council delayed it
again in the aftermath of Matthew. No new date has yet been set.
Matthew was
downgraded early on Wednesday from a Category 4 storm on the five-step
Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The storm had
sustained winds of about 115 mph (185 kph) on Wednesday evening, but the NHC
said it could strengthen as it approaches Florida.
The eye of the storm
was about 270 miles (435 km) south-southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas at 8 p.m.
EST (0000 GMT) and 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," Florida Governor Scott told
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 full extent 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.
Haiti was a
particular concern because it is prone to mudslides due to extensive
deforestation, and tens of thousands of people are still living in tents and
makeshift dwellings after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000
people.
A spokesman for U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Haitian government estimated 350,000
people needed immediate assistance.
Chris Bessey,
country representative at charity Catholic Relief Services, said on-the-ground
reports from the small coastal town of Dame Marie indicated that much of the
town had been destroyed.
The death toll in
Haiti included at least eight people killed by falling trees and six others
swept away by swollen rivers, authorities said.
Mourad Wahba, the
U.N. secretary-general's deputy special representative for Haiti, said the
storm had triggered "the largest humanitarian event" witnessed in
Haiti since the 2010 quake.
The U.S. government
said it was ready to help the afflicted, and about 300 U.S. Marines set off on
the USS Mesa Verde to provide disaster relief in Haiti, the Marines said on
Twitter.
CUBA'S OLDEST TOWN
GUTTED
There were no
immediate reports of deaths in Cuba but Matthew devastated the picture-postcard
tourist town of Baracoa, Cuba's oldest colonial settlement, in the province of
Guantanamo. It gutted many houses there, dumping hunks of cement, wooden beams,
roof tiles and fallen electrical lines on the streets.
"This is
unbelievable. The little we have we tried to look after, we know we don't have
the means to get more," said Hector Toirac, 45, a carpenter in a nearby
fishing village where residents rummaged for belongings in the rubble of
collapsed homes.
The storm passed
close to the U.S. naval base and military prison in Guantanamo and was on track
to plow through the central and northwestern Bahamas, the NHC forecasts showed.
Officials in the
Bahamas urged residents to evacuate to higher ground and the Ministry for Grand
Bahama said on Facebook that government offices in New Providence and Grand
Bahama were closed until further notice.
Hurricane and
tropical storm warnings have been extended along a large stretch of Florida's
east coast ahead of Matthew's forecast arrival there on Thursday.
Tropical storm or
hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North
Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the
NHC said. Reuters
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