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KINGSTON: Tropical Storm Gustav battered Jamaica Thursday as the death toll climbed to 59 in nearby Hispaniola, the island shared by Dominican Republic and Haiti that Gustav slammed at hurricane strength two days ago.
Anxiety grew along the US Gulf Coast, with states devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago declaring emergencies and oil companies evacuating personnel, ahead of a hurricane-force landfall in the region predicted for Monday.
"Gustav could become a hurricane by tomorrow," forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.
Gustav was forecast to pummel the Cayman Islands and the western tip of Cuba before turning north and entering the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, the NHC said.
At 2400 GMT Gustav was crossing Jamaica from east to west, packing winds of 110 kilometres per hour that ripped off roofs and threatened to wreak havoc on the country's banana industry, officials said.
The two international airports on the islands were closed and the government urged residents to stay indoors. Streets in the capital city of Kingston were deserted.
The storm is expected to produce up to 30 centimetres of rainfall in parts of Jamaica and could produce life-threatening mudslides, flash floods and tidal flooding like those seen in Haiti.
Civil defence officials in Port-au-Prince said Thursday that 51 people died, seven went missing and 22 had been injured from the ravages of the storm and subsequent flooding.
Gustav struck the island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as a Category One hurricane on Tuesday.
Thursday, thousands of Haitians were still in emergency shelters, receiving government and NGO aid.
Gustav destroyed untold numbers of homes, bridges and other structures after floodwaters inundated entire villages in Haiti.
Officials said the death toll could rise.
"There are regions affected by the storm that our teams have not been able to reach," civil protection director Alta Jean-Baptiste told reporters in Port-au-Prince, adding that most of the deaths occurred in Haiti's southeast.
"The majority of victims died when their houses collapsed, or were killed by falling trees. Others drowned when they tried to cross swollen rivers," she said.
The impact of the storm was worse coming just days after Tropical Storm Fay, which had lashed the Caribbean with severe winds and flooding.
In Dominican Republic, Gustav left a wide swath of destruction killing eight people and forcing more than 6,000 to abandon their homes, local authorities said.
In Cuba, more than 60,000 people were evacuated in eastern provinces as a precaution, authorities said.
Meanwhile, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami announced that a new tropical storm, Hanna, was brewing in the Atlantic - the eighth so far this season - and has the potential to become yet another devastating storm.
British oil group BP and US rivals ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their energy installations in the Gulf of Mexico, as Gustav loomed.
ExxonMobil said it was preparing for the storm and "identifying personnel for possible evacuation to shore."
About a quarter of US crude oil installations are located in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil prices fell sharply Thursday, however, as traders discounted the threat of the storm.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, fell US$2.56 to close at US$115.59 per barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for October shed US$2.05 to settle at US$114.17.
"The latest forecasts for Tropical Storm Gustav suggest a slightly lower chance of major disruptions in oil production," said Al Goldman, analyst at Wachovia Securities.
Officials in the US states of Mississippi and Louisiana declared emergencies in advance of the possible arrival of Gustav and were evacuating coastal areas.
Hurricane Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, killing more than 1,800, the vast majority of them in New Orleans.
The US Department of Homeland Security urged Gulf Coast residents to get ready for the storm.
"Regardless of its predicted path, it is important for citizens in the Gulf Coast region to listen to what their local officials are advising over the course of the next few days and to take these simple steps to prepare," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
- AFP/yb
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