By BBC Caribbean
August 19, 2007
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Jamaicans are frantically stocking up on supplies and tourists are scrambling to leave, as Hurricane Dean bears down on the island.
Jamaica is braced for a direct hit from Dean, the season's first major storm.
The country's authorities have closed |
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| airports and imposed curfews, and the US has said it is prepared to fly in aid if necessary. |
| Winds of 230km/h (145mph) from the hurricane have battered the eastern Caribbean, leaving at least four dead. |
| Haiti and the Dominican Republic have also been affected, with heavy rain and high seas causing flooding in some coastal areas. |
| Jamaica has converted schools, churches and the indoor national sports arena into emergency shelters. |
| Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller has called for off-duty police officers, firefighters and prison warders to report for work to help prepare for the storm. |
| She has also halted campaigning for elections, due to be held on 27 August. |
| "Let us band together and unite in the threat of this hurricane," she said. |
| Thousands of tourists queued at airports, desperate to get flights out before the storm hits. |
| Dutch tourist Gideon Tuttezs, queuing at Montego Bay's airport, told Reuters: "If we don't manage to leave we'll go back to the hotel and barricade the hotel room and then hope and pray." |
| Some areas have been placed under a 48-hour curfew, starting at 1800 on Saturday (2300 GMT), and regions prone to flooding are being evacuated. |
| Cayman Airways has put on 15 extra flights from the Cayman Islands to Florida, as thousands flee the British territory. |
| In Cuba, tens of thousands of people in the east of the country are being evacuated and officials said tourist programmes had been suspended. |
| Officials in the French territory of Martinique have estimated the damage caused by the hurricane will cost more than 150m euros ($200m; £100m) to repair. |
| A state of emergency has been declared in Mexico, where the government is preparing to evacuate thousands of tourists and close down oil production. |
| Hurricane Dean is building up strength as it passes through the Caribbean. |
| Forecasters say it may achieve the highest category, five, by the time it reaches Mexico on Monday. |
| Rough waves damaged buildings on the coast of the Dominican Republic, and a boy was reported drowned and several people were injured in the capital Santo Domingo. |
| Dean earlier visited destruction on the islands of St Lucia, Martinique and Dominica, with roofs ripped off and banana plantations flattened. |
| In Dominica, a landslide crushed a woman and her seven-year-old son while they slept in their home. |
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