Hurricane hits eastern Caribbean

Hurricane Tomas caused extensive damage to the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Saturday night, before weakening to aCategory 1 storm.

TheCategory 2 storm waspacking winds of 155 km/h when it made landfall. It tore the roofs from homes and knocked out electricity all over the island. But as the storm moved northwest over the Caribbean early Sunday, the winds were clocked as high as 150 km/h.

Tomas was downgraded Sunday evening to a tropical storm over the eastern Caribbean, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a release at 11 p.m. AT.

St. Lucia, Barbados and Martinique weretallying the damage done by Tomas earlier Saturday.Torrential rainmade a number ofroads impassible in Barbados and high winds destroyedroofs in several communities.

Authorities in St. Vincent said they had unconfirmed reports that three people died during the storm, including two men who might have been blown off a roof.

Jimmy Prince, emergency management spokesman for St. Vincent, said fierce winds tore roofs from nearly 100 homes as the island plunged into darkness.

Forecasters had initially predicted Tomas wouldintensify to a Category 3 hurricane by Tuesday, when it is expected to pass south of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.It was over open ocean Sunday,425 kilometres south of Ponce,Puerto Rico.

Tomas isthe 12th hurricane of the 2010 hurricane season.