Paloma lost its punch as it stalled over Cuba on Sunday and was downgraded to a tropical depression after coming ashore as powerful hurricane that battered the island still recovering from two earlier storms.
Paloma left a trail of destruction through eastern Cuba, but not the widespread devastation of hurricanes Gustav and Ike that caused $8 billion in damage when they struck in August and September.
CAMAGUEY, Cuba (AP) — Crashing waves and a powerful sea surge from Hurricane Paloma destroyed hundreds of homes along Cuba’s southern coast, but the storm rapidly weakened into a tropical depression Sunday as it moved over the island.
Early damage reports were limited, but state media said the late-season storm toppled a major communications tower, interrupted electricity and phone service and sent sea water almost a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) inland, ravaging a coastal community near where it made landfall.
Hurricane Paloma, heading toward Cuba, is packing sustained winds of 135 mph and has been upgraded to Category 4 status, meteorologists said Saturday.
Accuweater.com forecasters said Paloma was expected to make landfall late Saturday night or early Sunday morning along the south-central coast of Cuba. Rain and strong winds were already pounding the Cayman Islands Saturday as officials urged residents to stay off the streets and evacuated some low-lying coastal regions.
Hurricane Paloma strengthened over the Caribbean and may become a Category 3 storm before hitting Cuba, which is still recovering from hurricanes Ike and Gustav.
Paloma’s maximum sustained winds increased to 130 kilometers (80 miles) per hour, from 120 kph earlier today, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory on its Web site just before 7 a.m. Miami time. The system, which is forecast to continue strengthening, was about 395 kilometers (245 miles) west of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and moving north at 13 kph.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Outside the Zekai Tahir Burak maternity hospital stands a bronze statue of a mother nursing a baby with an inscription from the Prophet Mohammed: “Paradise lies at the feet of the mother.”
In July, the Ankara facility became the scene of any parent’s hell: A total of 27 newborns died here within two weeks, most of them from infection.
Now Turkey is reeling from a similar tragedy at another hospital, this time in the western city of Izmir, where 13 premature babies died last weekend within 24 hours, apparently from tainted IV treatment.
Hurricane Ike took aim at Cuba today after leaving 20 people dead in Haiti, where the death toll from a succession of powerful storms in the past few weeks now tops 600.
Ike was downgraded today from a Category Four hurricane to a still potentially devastating Category Three, as Cuba evacuated hundreds of thousands in a frantic bid to evade the storm’s fury.
Officials in Haiti, meanwhile, continued aid operations in the flood-stricken town of Gonaives, which has borne the brunt of recent flooding and seen untold misery and destruction.
CAMAGUEY, Cuba - Hurricane Ike roared into Cuba on Sunday after destroying houses and crops on low-lying islands and worsening floods in Haiti that have already killed more than 300 people.
With Ike forecast to sweep the length of Cuba and possibly hit Havana head-on, hundreds of thousands of Cubans evacuated to shelters or higher ground. To the north, residents of the Florida Keys fled up a narrow highway, fearful the “extremely dangerous” hurricane could hit them Tuesday.
