News

'Emily' swells into dangerous Category 3 hurricane

port-of-spain, trinidad, (reuters)

GROWING HURRICANE EMILY battered houses and flooded roads in Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago yesterday as it streaked into the south-eastern Caribbean Sea with 100 mph (160 kph) winds.

Emily blossomed into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane on the five-step hurricane scale and forecasters said it could strengthen as it charges toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

Devastated by Hurricane Ivan last September, the tiny spice island of Grenada, home to 90,000 people, suffered more damage to houses, buildings and infrastructure, officials said. No deaths were reported.

Ivan inflicted $2.2 billion in damage on Grenada, double the annual economic output of the island, which is one of the world's leading producers of nutmeg. Ninety per cent of its peoples' homes were damaged or destroyed.

In energy-rich Trinidad and Tobago, two houses collapsed and a dozen lost roofs. Emily flooded roads, toppled trees and knocked out power.

At 5 p.m. yesterday the centre of Emily was about 445 miles (715 km) southeast of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and moving to the west-northwest at about 21 mph (34 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.

The hurricane centre's long-range forecast had Emily racing across the Caribbean Sea north of the Netherlands Antilles over the next two days.

It would skirt Jamaica's south coast tomorrow and hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula on Sunday.