A nation in mourning: Houses are destroyed as Hurricane Matthew passes Corail in Haiti, killing more than 500 people and leaving thousands homeless. People across southwest Haiti were digging through the wreckage of their homes yesterday. Helpers were trying to assess the damage and provide assistance, though their efforts were hampered by damaged roads and rough terrain.

Hurricane Matthew, carrying winds of 195 kph, lashed central Florida yesterday, hugging the Atlantic coast as it moved north and threatened more destruction after killing more than 500 people and leaving thousands homeless in Haiti.

Matthew, the first major hurricane that could hit the United States head on in more than a decade, triggered mass evacuations along the coast from Florida through Georgia and into South and North Carolina.

Southern Florida escaped the brunt of the storm overnight, but US President Barack Obama and other officials urged people farther north not to get complacent.

"I just want to emphasize to everybody that this is still a really dangerous hurricane, that the potential for storm surge, loss of life and severe property damage exists and people continue to need to follow the instructions of their local officials over the next 24, 48, 72 hours," Obama said.

The Florida city of Jacksonville could face significant flooding, Florida Governor Rick Scott said, adding the storm had cut power to some 600,000 households in the state.

In the Caribbean country of Haiti, where poor rural communities were ravaged by Matthew, the death toll surged to at least 572 people yesterday, as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a Reuters tally of death tolls given by local officials.

Matthew smashed through the tip of Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 233 kph winds and torrential rain. Some 61,500 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages, some of which were only now being contacted.

Cellphone networks were down and roads were flooded by sea and river water in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas. Aid has been slow to reach towns and villages around the peninsula. Instead, locals have been helping each other.

"My house wasn't destroyed, so I am receiving people, like it's a temporary shelter," said Bellony Amazan in the town of Cavaillon, where around a dozen people died. Amazan said she had no food to give people.

No significant damage or injuries were reported in West Palm Beach and other cities and towns in south Florida where the storm brought down trees and power lines earlier in the night.

Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he was concerned that relatively light damage so far could give people farther north a false sense of security.

"People should not be looking at the damages they're seeing and saying this storm is not that bad," Fugate said. People should also be aware the hurricane carried more than just ferocious winds, he added.

"The real danger still is storm surge, particularly in northern Florida and southern Georgia. These are very vulnerable areas. They've never seen this kind of damage potential since the late 1800s," he said.

NASA and the US Air Force, which operate the Cape Canaveral launch site, had taken steps to safeguard personnel and equipment. A team of 116 employees was bunkered down inside Kennedy Space Center's Launch Control Center to ride out the hurricane.

Matthew lessened in intensity on Thursday night and into yesterday morning, the US National Hurricane Center said, but was still a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Category 5 is the strongest.

The US National Weather Service said the storm could be the most powerful to strike northeast Florida in 118 years.

The NHC's hurricane warning extended up the Atlantic coast from southern Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina.

The last major hurricane, classified as a storm bearing sustained winds of more than 177 kph, to make landfall on US shores was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

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