Hurricane aims for US after ravaging Cuba

There were no reported casualties on the island from the giant storm, the most powerful to hit Cuba in living memory, which the US National Hurricane Center said could be one of the most intense ever seen in the Gulf.

US authorities urged coastal residents to watch Ivan's progress closely. Many began boarding up their homes and making plans to evacuate if the storm came near.

After a Caribbean rampage that killed at least 68 people and left behind vast damage, Ivan was expected to make landfall in the United States as early as Wednesday night, prompting forecasters to post a hurricane watch from the Florida Panhandle to west of New Orleans in Louisiana.

The powerful core of Ivan, a rare Category 5 hurricane with catastrophic winds near 160 mph, crossed Cuba's sparsely populated western Guanahacabibes peninsula.

Vicious winds and pounding seas pummeled the tobacco-growing province of Pinar del Rio. The sea surged 600 yards inland it some points and the diving center Maria la Gorda was hit by an 11-foot surge.

At 5 a.m. EDT, the eye of Ivan was about 85 miles northwest of the western tip of Cuba at latitude 22.6 north and longitude 86.0 west and moving northwest near 9 mph, the US hurricane center said. Forecasters said they expected Ivan to turn gradually north-northwest and weaken slightly during the next 24 hours.

Cuban authorities had evacuated 1.3 million of the country's 11 million people before Ivan took a more westerly path than first predicted.

"What a relief. It's a miracle that it ended up going toward Yucatan," said Nadelin Gonzalez, a housewife in the capital Havana, whose two million people had been in the storm's projected path.

President Fidel Castro, touring Pinar del Rio province, said Ivan had been "courteous" by veering west.