MIAMI -
Hurricane Ike ripped through central Cuba yesterday, toppling colonial landmarks and forcing the evacuation of nearly 1 million people - with more likely to be displaced as the powerful storm plowed toward populous Havana.
Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro proclaimed his country on "combat alert" against the third large storm to hit the island in as many weeks and what he portrayed as a heartless double standard that blocks U.S. humanitarian aid.
The extent of Ike's damage elsewhere in the Caribbean emerged yesterday, a day after it ravaged Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 135 mph and triggered more flooding in devastated Haiti, where the deaths from a series of storms were said to exceed 1,000.
In the important Cuban farming and mining areas near Camaguey, news agencies reported buildings collapsed under the ferocious winds, including colonial columns that graced the UNESCO-designated historical site.
As it moved into the Caribbean at midday, Ike slowed to about 12 mph, and the National Hurricane Center reported that it was a Category I storm, with sustained winds of about 80 mph. But the Miami center warned that it was likely to regain intensity overnight as it moved across the warm waters off Cuba's southern coast. Ike is expected to hit Louisiana or Texas this weekend.
Forecasters feared the storm might hit Havana today with winds exceeding 100 mph.
"It will have a very powerful fuel there," Jose Rubiera, head of Cuba's National Meteorological Institute, warned on state television after Ike crossed into the shallow mangrove-studded waters of the Gulf of Ana Maria.
Haiti's consul general for South Florida, Ralph Latortue, reported an even more dire state of his homeland than was apparent from the images showing bloated, mud-covered bodies stacking up at makeshift morgues along the flooded west coast.
More than 1,000 people have been killed over the past month, 14,000 homes have been destroyed and 5 million people are without food, water or shelter, he told journalists in Miami.
The Navy sent its amphibious assault ship Kearsarge to Port-au-Prince to assist in ferrying disaster relief to victims cut off by collapsed bridges and flooded towns along the sole road to stricken areas north of the capital. In contrast to the $100,000 in assistance offered to Cuba, Washington upped its aid to Haitian storm victims to $10 million.
