BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Hurricane Dennis closed in on the Gulf Coast yesterday after strengthening into a dangerous Category 4 storm, ploughing towards a region still recovering from a hurricane 10 months ago.

    

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Hurricane Dennis raced ashore on the US Gulf Coast on Sunday with ferocious 120-mph (195 kph) winds and pounding waves that lashed an area still scarred by last year's storms. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

With nearly 1.4 million people under evacuation orders, some towns in the projected path were left almost deserted. Landfall was expected Sunday afternoon (local time) somewhere along the coast of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama or Mississippi.

    After weakening to a Category 2 storm over Cuba, Dennis regrouped in the Gulf on Saturday and became a Category 4 storm again early yesterday, with sustained winds of 230 kph.

    Hurricane Dennis left behind a battered Cuba with shattered houses, shredded power lines and debris-littered streets on Saturday a Caribbean rampage that killed at least 32 people.

    Roaring winds with gusts of up to 165 kph and driving rain pounded blacked-out Havana all night. Authorities cut off power to avoid accidents from fallen cables.

    A weakened Dennis ploughed through the countryside just east of the capital city of 2 million, knocking down trees and power lines, but causing relatively minor damage.

    "The wind was terrible and there was so much rain, but we are in one piece here," said the owner of a pizzeria in Guanabo, a beach town 23 kilometres east of Havana.

    "Diabolical force"

    Cuban authorities evacuated more than 600,000 people in different parts of the country as Dennis approached the southern city of Cienfuegos on Friday with 238 kph gusts. But the measures, which usually allow the island to escape hurricane strikes with minimal casualties, failed to prevent 10 deaths on Thursday night.

    Cuban President Fidel Castro said most of the victims died in collapsed houses in two coastal towns in Granma province. An 18-day-old baby was among those who died, he said on television, calling the hurricane a "diabolical force."

    Officials said 15,400 of the adjacent towns' 20,000 houses were destroyed or damaged. Television images showed rows of clapboard houses flattened by the storm.

    In southern Haiti, 15 people died when a swollen river tore away a bridge. The total number of deaths in Haiti reached 22, according to officials.

    Authorities ordered people out of the lower half of the 160-kilometre Florida Keys island chain as the powerful storm menaced Cuba.

    Alabama Governor Bob Riley ordered up to 500,000 people to flee coastal areas as the killer storm approached an area crushed by Hurricane Ivan in September during last year's season.

    In the Gulf of Mexico, energy companies had pulled hundreds of workers off oil rigs and shut down some crude and natural gas production.

    Dennis was on a similar trajectory as last September's Hurricane Ivan, which caused extensive damage to pipelines and rigs, and the approach of Dennis has helped keep US crude futures prices high.

    Long lines of traffic formed along Alabama's Gulf coast as thousands of residents with fresh memories of Ivan fled low-lying coastal counties, heeding the governor's order.

    "Local law enforcement officials will be sending out police officers door-to-door to tell people they have to leave," said Jeff Emerson, Governor Riley's press secretary. Enditem

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