Hurricane slams Cuba, Haiti death toll passes 600

Hurricane Ike raged over Cuba with gale force winds, torrential rains and massive waves that rolled through coastal towns on Monday on a path toward the Gulf of Mexico oil fields and possibly New Orleans, leaving a path of death and destruction it its wake.

The second hurricane to strike in less than a week worsened a growing humanitarian disaster, prompting more than 800,000 people to evacuate coastal areas of eastern Cuba. More than 9,000 foreign tourists were moved out of the resort of Varadero.

Ike, a dangerous Category 3 storm, had earlier ripped through the southern Bahamas and added to the misery and death toll in storm-battered Haiti. Officials said at least 61 people had died in floods in impoverished Haiti on top of 500 killed last week by Tropical Storm Hanna.

Back-to-back storms

The hurricane made landfall at Punta Lucrecia late Sunday, the head of Cuba's meteorological service, Jose Rubiera, told state television.

Packing 195-kilometer (120-mile) per hour winds, Ike is the second powerful storm in just eight days to strike Cuba, following Hurricane Gustav.

"In all of Cuba's history, we have never had two hurricanes this close together," lamented Rubeira.

Officials said at least 1.1 million people were evacuated ahead of a storm expected to slash through the heart of Cuba, which is still reeling from Hurricane Gustav's hard hit on the west side of the long, narrow island last week.

The main concern is now in Haiti, where four storms in three weeks have killed at least 600 people and left hundreds of thousands in desperate need of food, clean water and shelter.

Some 650,000 Haitians have been affected by the flooding, including 300,000 children, and the task of delivering crucial aid has been complicated by dismal transport conditions, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF). Officials said 200,000 people were without food and clean water, many for four days.

Massive flooding over the past week in the poorest country in the Americas has triggered a humanitarian crisis that was worsening by the day.

Projected path

After traversing Cuba, Ike is projected to enter the Gulf of Mexico, where 4,000 platforms produce 25 percent of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, and point toward Louisiana and Texas.

Oil jumped $2 to near $109 a barrel on Monday, rebounding from a five-month low on worries that Ike would tear through the Gulf of Mexico, and on hopes that a U.S. bailout of its top mortgage lenders would help temper a U.S. economic downturn.

Ike may threaten New Orleans, the city swamped in 2005 by
Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Gustav narrowly missed New Orleans last Monday.