Haiti

Hurricane Matthew, a Category Four storm, swept over the west of Haiti and is now heading towards eastern Cuba.

Southern Haiti has effectively been cut off after the bridge linking it to the capital, Port-au-Prince, collapsed.

The deputy mayor of the southern coastal town of Les Cayes described the scene there as "catastrophic".

Marie Claudette Regis Delerme said the city of 70,000 people was flooded and many houses had lost roofs. She herself had to flee a meeting when a gust ripped off the building's roof.

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The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said that mountains and an unfavourable environment would likely knock Erika below tropical storm force, though there's a small chance it could recover as it moves along Cuba and then approaches Florida late Sunday.

Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late Friday that damage inflicted by the storm set the island back 20 years. Some 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain fell on the mountainous island.