Maria intensifies into Category 5 hurricane
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E-mail Xinhua, September 19, 2017
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Hurricane Maria is shown in the Atlantic Ocean in this NOAA's GOES East satellite as it strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane just east of the Leeward Islands at 10:45 a.m. EDT (1445 UTC) on Sept. 18, 2017. [Photo/VCG] |
Tropical storm Maria, bearing down on the tiny island nation of Dominica in the eastern Caribbean, intensified into a Category-5 "potentially catastrophic" hurricane on Monday.
Its center was about 25 km east-southeast of Dominica and 70 km north of Martinique in the eastern Caribbean Sea, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory Monday evening.
The storm was moving west-northwest at a speed of 15 km per hour, with maximum sustained winds of 260 km per hour, according to the agency.
Now a Category-5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, it is also the fourth major Atlantic hurricane of 2017.
It was forecast that Maria will move near Dominica and the adjacent Leeward Islands during the next few hours.
The storm will churn through the extreme northeastern part of the Caribbean Sea before approaching Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Tuesday night and Wednesday, the center predicted.
A dangerous storm surge accompanied by large and destructive waves will raise water levels by as much as 1.5 meters to 2.1 meters above normal levels in the hurricane warning area, according to the advisory.
Maria is also expected to produce rain accumulation ranging from 5 cm to 63 cm in the island region through Thursday.
Puerto Rico is bracing for the direct landfall of such a strong storm for the first time in 85 years. Its Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has declared a state of emergency as Maria is expected to hit the Caribbean island on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for Puerto Rico on Monday to allow federal resources to assist the U.S. territory's response to the incoming storm.
The vulnerable island region is still reeling under the devastation caused earlier in September by Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Over 80 people in the Caribbean and southern United States died due to Irma.
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