Three people died and several were missing as Hurricane Irene swept past the Dominican Republic, according to local media reports on Thursday that cited the chief of the emergency centre, dpa reported. In its latest advisory at 0900 GMT, the US National Weather Service said that "dangerous" Irene was moving over the northwestern Bahamas and that hurricane and tropical storm watches were issued for parts of the US East Coast. In the Dominican Republic, nearly 38,000 people were evacuated to safety. According to the emergency centre chief Juan Manuel Mendez, about 2,000 homes were completely under water. In San Cristobal, west of capital Santo Domingo, a 40-year-old man died when his house collapsed in the storm. Two other people, including a pregnant woman, were swept away in floods the El Nuevo Diario newspaper reported online. Irene was expected to pass offshore of the eastern coast of central and north Florida Thursday night. It is a category-three hurricane in the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of 185 kilometres per hour, and hurricane force winds extending outward for up to 110 kilometres from its centre. Irene developed at the weekend over the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean and has continuously strengthened since then.
