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HAVANA: Tropical storm Fay dumped heavy rains on the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Saturday while threatening to turn into a hurricane as it approaches Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Florida, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
One person was reportedly killed and three missing in the Dominican Republic due to the heavy rains while thousands of people evacuated to avoid the storm, local media reported.
The sixth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season packed sustained winds of 75 kilometres per hour and downpours of up to 20 centimetres of rain that could produce "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the NHC said.
Fay then raked across Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and red alerts were posted along with orders to evacuate flood zones as heavy rains and winds battered much of the country.
"Most of Haiti is under heavy rains, especially in the south, with winds clocked at about 70 kilometres per hour," Ronald Semelfort, an official with Haiti's meteorological service, told AFP.
Fay has set its sights on Cuba, where authorities issued a hurricane watch for three provinces as the storm reaches the eastern part of the island on Saturday.
"Strengthening is forecast during the next couple of days... and Fay could be near hurricane strength as it approaches central Cuba on Sunday," the NHC added in an 1800 GMT advisory.
The storm was expected to gather strength over the open water between Haiti and Cuba, where the government and civil defence forces have warned residents to brace for the storm's arrival.
Fay's centre was about 80 kilometres south-southeast of Cuba's Guantanamo, where a tropical storm watch remained in effect - and where the US military has a naval station at Guantanamo Bay.
The storm was heading westward at up to 26 kilometres per hour and was expected to take a west-northwest track later Saturday as it approached central Cuba.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the Turks and Caicos islands and the southeastern Bahamas, while Jamaica and the Cayman islands, south of Cuba, issued a tropical storm watch. The storm is expected to reach the US state of Florida after it crosses Cuba on Sunday.
In Florida's coastal metropolis Miami, residents have begun descending on gas stations and supermarkets to fill up their gas tanks and stock up on bottled water and other emergency items in anticipation of Fay's arrival early next week, while local television stations broadcast warnings about possible business shutdowns and power cuts.
In the Dominican Republic, a woman drowned in a swollen creek and her two nephews and another person were missing, the Listin Diario newspaper said on its website.
More than 2,000 Dominicans were evacuated to shelters as the storm knocked down trees, damaged hundreds of houses and knocked out power to more than 15,000 homes, according to local news reports. - AFP/de
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