GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP):

HURRICANE IVAN battered the Cayman Islands with ferocious 150-mph (240-kph) winds yesterday, flooding homes, ripping off roofs and toppling trees three stories tall as its powerful eye thundered past just offshore.

Ivan has killed at least 65 people across the Caribbean, and is expected to strike western Cuba today. About 1.3 million Cubans were evacuated from their homes, with most taking refuge in the sturdier homes of relatives, co-workers or neighbours.

The hurricane, which grew to the most powerful category five with 165 mph (265 kph) winds Saturday, lost some strength before tearing into the wealthy Cayman Islands, a popular scuba diving destination and banking centre.

"It's as bad as it can possibly get," Justin Uzzell, 35, said by telephone from his fifth-floor refuge in a Grand Cayman office building. "It's a horizontal blizzard," he said, "The air is just foam."

STANDING ON ROOFS

High winds prevented officials from assessing damages immediately. But Donnie Ebanks, deputy chairman of the British territory's National Hurricane Committee, estimated between one-fourth and half of the 15,000 homes on the island of Grand Cayman suffered some damage.

Ivan was projected to pass near or over Cuba's western end by Monday afternoon or evening. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm surge could reach 25 feet (7.5 metres) with dangerous, battering waves.

The hurricane centre said ham aradio operators on Grand Cayman reported people were standing on the roofs of homes because of storm surges of up to eight feet (2.5 metres) above normal tide levels.

While it was nearly a direct hit on Grand Cayman, the eye of the storm did not make landfall, passing instead over water just south of the island, said Rafael Mojica, a Hurricane Centre meteorologist.

SEVERE DAMAGE

Still, emergency officials said residents from all parts of the island were reporting blown-off roofs and flooded homes as Ivan's shrieking winds and driving rain lashed Grand Cayman, the largest of three islands that comprise the British territory of 45,000 people.

"We know there is damage and it is severe," said Wes Emanuel of the Cayman Islands' Government Information Service.

The airport runway was flooded and windows were shattered in the control tower, Ebanks said. The winds blew the leaves off trees and wrenched many from their roots, including a giant Cayman mahogany next to the government headquarters in George Town, the capital.

HEADING FOR FLORIDA

After hitting Cuba, Ivan was projected to move into the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow, nearing parts of Florida's west coast still recovering from Hurricane Charley, on a path toward northwestern Florida.

Mexico also issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning today for the north-eastern Yucatan Peninsula, and hundreds of people abandoned fishing settlements on the nearby island of Holbox. The resort city of Cancun opened shelters and closed off all beaches as winds picked up on the coast.

While projections had the storm bypassing the Florida Keys, uncertainty about its course prompted officials to keep an evacuation order in place for the island chain's 79,000 residents.

At 8 p.m. EDT, Ivan's eye was about 210 miles (340 kilometres) southeast of the western tip of Cuba. Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) and tropical storm-force winds out to 200 miles (325 kilometres). Ivan was moving west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph) and a turn northwest is expected today.

Its 150 mph (240 kph) winds made it a category four hurricane, just below a category five.

When its winds were more intense Saturday, Ivan became one of the strongest storms on record in the Atlantic and the Caribbean.

The Cayman Islands' National Hurricane Committee urged people to stay indoors as sheets of rain fell near horizontally in whipping winds.

The Cayman Islands have stringent building codes that are strictly enforced, but Ivan's raging winds shook the reinforced concrete building housing the hurricane committee at Owen Roberts International Airport, and flooding forced officials to evacuate the ground floor.

Ambulances and other emergency vehicles were three feet (one metre) underwater, Emanuel said. Flying debris tore off some storm shutters, and at least one resort lost its boat dock.

Hundreds left the Caymans on chartered flights before the hurricane came, and most of the 150 residents of Little Cayman were brought to the big island.

Officials reported 3,000 people had filled all shelters on Grand Cayman and about 750 in Cayman Brac island were in shelters. Hundreds in Cayman Brac fled to caves that historically have provided shelter from bad hurricanes.

Electricity and water service was cut before the storm to prevent electrocutions and damage to plants.

In Cuba, the threatened area included densely populated Havana, where traffic was light Sunday as most took shelter.

"This country is prepared to face this hurricane," President Fidel Castro said Saturday night. The storm is the most powerful to threaten the country since the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power.

In western Cuba, dozens of families in the coastal town of La Coloma bundled up clothes, medicine, furniture and television sets before boarding buses to take shelter elsewhere.

"I feel sad leaving my house on its own," said Ricardo Hernandez, a 44-year-old fisherman on his way out of town. "But I have to protect myself and save the lives of my family."

Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million, was saved from a direct hit Saturday when the hurricane unexpectedly wobbled and lurched to the west, but it still suffered heavy damage from monstrous waves and torrential rains.

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