Hurricane Ike slammed into Cuba, the second major storm to hit the island in a little over a week, making landfall in the eastern province of Holguin as a major Category Three hurricane, weather officials said.
Just hours before, hundreds of thousands of panicked Cubans fled the fury of the advancing storm Sunday, the latest of several major storms to sow misery and destruction through the flood-stricken Caribbean in recent weeks.
The head of the island's meteorological service, Jose Rubiera, told television in Havana that the outer wall of the eye of the hurricane made landfall at the eastern Cuban town of Punta Lucrecia.
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UN peacekeepers cross a river after floods near Port-au-Prince September 7, 2008. [Agencies]
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Lashing the Atlantic with torrential rain and howling winds, Ike has already killed dozens in Haiti, deepening the impoverished country's humanitarian disaster.
Packing 120-mile (195-kilometer) per hour winds, Ike is the second powerful storm in just eight days to strike Cuba, following the devastation of Hurricane Gustav.
"In all of Cuba's history, we have never had two hurricanes this close together," lamented Rubeira.
More than 800,000 Cubans were evacuated ahead of the Ike's arrival, including more than 9,000 foreign visitors who were moved out of the tourist mecca of Varadero, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Havana.
Officials in Haiti continued aid operations in the flood-stricken town of Gonaives, devastated by flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna.
Forty-seven people perished in the Haitian village of Cabaret, near Port-au-Prince, in flooding caused by Ike, officials said Sunday.
