Tuesday, June 13, 2006

MIAMI, USA (AFP): US officials warned Monday the season's first tropical storm could unleash life-threatening floods and mud slides as Cuban officials evacuated 25,000 people from Alberto's path.

"Alberto is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) over the western half of Cuba with isolated totals of 30 inches over the higher terrain," the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

"These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," the Miami forecasters cautioned.

In Cuba, eight people were injured and 52 homes damaged by a storm-related tornado in Nueva Paz, south of Havana on Sunday, government television said.

About 400 people were evacuated in Havana where authorities are wary of storm damage to the old and often fragile housing stock in a densely populated city of more than two million. Cuba's total population tops 11 million.

The US center issued a tropical storm watch for the western coast of Florida.

At 0600 GMT, the center of the broad circulation of Alberto was about 550 kilometers (340 miles) south-southwest of Apalachicola, and about 620 kilometers southwest of Cedar Key, the NHC said.

"Alberto is moving toward the north-northeast near 10 kilometers per hour (6 mph) and a turn toward the northeast is expected during the next 12 to 24 hours," the forecasters said.

The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of about 75 kph (45 mph) with higher gusts and little change in strength was expected during the next 24 hours, they added.

Tide levels were already more than 0.3 meter (a foot) above normal along the west coast of Florida from the Tampa Bay area north to Appalachicola.

In Cuba, civil defense officials evacuated 25,000 persons from low-lying areas in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba. The Isle of Youth, south of Havana, was cut off from air and sea transportation because of heavy rains, local television news reported.

Alberto is the first tropical depression of the season to gain tropical-storm strength, and thus the first to earn a proper name. Tropical storms have sustained winds of between 39 mph (63 kph) and 73 mph (118 kph) -- beyond that, they are classified as hurricanes.

Two thousand students in Cuba were sent home from schools on Saturday, the official National Information Agency said.

Four medical surgical brigades were set up in Mantua, Guane, Minas de Matahambre and La Coloma, while two more were ready for deployment, officials said.

In the past two weeks, torrential rains killed seven people in Havana and two others in the eastern part of the country.

Alberto is the first storm since the close of last year's record-breaking Atlantic season of 28 storms, 15 of which became hurricanes.

Weather experts have forecast between eight to 10 hurricanes -- six of them major -- during the official June 1-November 30 hurricane season.

Last year, Hurricane Katrina killed 1,300 people and displaced tens of thousands along the US Gulf coast. New Orleans is still struggling to recover, and engineers have warned its levees could not withstand another battering.

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version