Hurricane Sandy hits Caribbean
Twenty-one people have died in the Caribbean as a result of tropical Hurricane Sandy, which strengthened into a category two hurricane as it reached Cuba on 26 October, with maximum sustained winds of 114 miles per hour being reported in the city of Santiago de Cuba. At least 55,000 people have been evacuated – including around 450 tourists – and both incoming and outgoing flights to and from eastern Cuba were cancelled, as were flights between the UK and Jamaica. It is expected that Sandy will remain a hurricane as it moves through Cuba and over the Bahamas, and forecasters are predicting that it could combine with a ‘polar air mass’ near the US next week, creating a much more unusual – and potent – storm with more destructive potential.
Twenty-one people have died in the Caribbean as a result of tropical Hurricane Sandy, which strengthened into a category two hurricane as it reached Cuba on 26 October, with maximum sustained winds of 114 miles per hour being reported in the city of Santiago de Cuba. At least 55,000 people have been evacuated – including around 450 tourists – and both incoming and outgoing flights to and from eastern Cuba were cancelled, as were flights between the UK and Jamaica. It is expected that Sandy will remain a hurricane as it moves through Cuba and over the Bahamas, and forecasters are predicting that it could combine with a ‘polar air mass’ near the US next week, creating a much more unusual – and potent – storm with more destructive potential.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) also expects Sandy to produce between six and 12 inches of rainfall in the Dominican Republic, eastern Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, which ‘may produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, especially in areas of mountainous terrain’. Hurricane warnings remain in place for Jamaica and the eastern Cuban provinces, while tropical storm warnings are in effect for the central Bahamas and Haiti and tropical storm watches are in effect for the southeastern and northwestern Bahamas.