Hurricane Dorian: Bahamas braces for category five storm

Miami,

Hurricane Dorian has become a category five storm and is expected to hit the Bahamas with devastating winds and very heavy rainfall, forecasters say.

The "extremely dangerous" storm is expected to slam the north-west of the island chain on Sunday, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, before making landfall on the US east coast.

Grand Bahama residents have been evacuating from its predicted path.

The storm surge could be as high as 15ft (4.6m), officials warned.

AIRPORTS CLOSED

Authorities closed some airports in the outlying islands, but the main international airport remains open on Sunday.

The storm was on Sunday morning about 35 miles east of the Bahamas' Great Abaco Island, moving westward at 8mph (13km/h) with maximum sustained winds of nearly 160mph (260km/h).

The core of the hurricane was expected to move over the island soon, and continue near or over Grand Bahama later on Sunday and Monday.

After hitting the Bahamas, it was expected to move up the US coast, grazing Florida, which had expected a direct hit but appeared to have been spared the worst by a change in the storm's path.

WIND SPEEDS

Dorian's wind speeds put the storm among the most dangerous in recent history. Forecasters warned that it could be the region's worst since the category five Hurricane Andrew killed 65 people and destroyed 63,000 homes in 1992.

US President Donald Trump said he was monitoring Dorian, which he described as "an extremely dangerous storm" on Twitter. He cancelled a planned trip to Poland, sending Vice-President Mike Pence in his place.