Dias Miguel
Cumulonimbus
Segundo a última run do GFS, Matthew em modo pião...
Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, powered toward the Bahamas and Florida's eastern coast early on Wednesday after battering Haiti and Cuba with torrential rains and killing at least 17 people.
Hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated from the path of the Matthew, which caused severe flooding and killed four people in the Dominican Republic as well as at least 13 in Haiti, the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola.
Authorities said on Wednesday five people in Haiti were crushed by trees and six were swept away by swollen rivers.
"More than 1,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed by the flood waters and violent winds," said Ernst Ais, the mayor of the town of Cavaillon, near Les Cayes. He said a mother and three children died in floodwaters in his town.
Three men were killed in Leogane, near Port-au-Prince, when a coconut palm fell on their home, the mayor there said.
There were no immediate reports of deaths, casualties or major damage in Cuba, where the government emphasized hurricane preparation. But Matthew did thrash the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo, gutting many houses and dumping hunks of cement, wooden beams, roof tiles and fallen electrical lines on the streets.