WASHINGTON - The eye of Hurricane Irma was swirling just north of Puerto Rico Wednesday night after passing over the northern Leeward Islands, with forecasters predicting it would rake over Hispaniola, the Bahamas and Cuba before turning north toward Florida. Irma remained a category-5 hurricane with 295-kilometres-per hour (kph) winds, the US National Hurricane Center said. The US territory of Puerto Rico had declared a state of emergency, and mandatory evacuations were under way in parts of Florida. In Barbuda, utilities and physical infrastructure were damaged and roofs were taken off some buildings as Irma hit, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne said. That storm was the largest to hit the state and the costliest in US history until Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

Source: The China Post September 07, 2017 07:18 UTC