Hurricane Matthew weakens, but leaves trail of destruction in its wake
Hurricane Matthew weakened to a Category 1 storm Saturday, nearing the end of a four-day rampage that left a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean and up the Atlantic coast of Florida.
The death toll in Haiti, where Matthew first made landfall on Tuesday, rose to at least 400, officials said, as the scope of the devastation became clearer in the impoverished Caribbean country's hard-hit south.
But by earlier Saturday afternoon, a weakening Matthew appeared to be nearing the end of its run, lashing the southern coast of South Carolina after leaving more than a million people without power in Florida and claiming five lives in the United States.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded the storm to a Category 1 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds subsiding to a still dangerous 130 kilometers per hour.
The NHC said hurricane and tropical storm conditions were still expected in Georgia and South Carolina, but the bigger threat may be a storm surge of as much as three meters in places.
"The combination of a dangerous storm surge, the tide, and large and destructive waves will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline," the NHC said.
Authorities in South Carolina ordered thousands to evacuate inland to shelters, where people sprawled out in school gyms.
Millions of Americans were subject to evacuation orders and curfews were slapped on cities as the lethal storm barreled north after storming through Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas.
President Barack Obama has declared federal states of emergency in Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.