JUPITER/ORLANDO — Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, blasted the Bahamas on Thursday as it headed for the southeastern US after killing at least 140 people, mostly in Haiti, on its deadly northward march. Matthew, carrying winds of 220km/h, was "relentlessly pounding" the northwestern part of the island chain en route to Florida’s Atlantic coast, the US National Hurricane Center said. The hurricane was likely to remain a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it hit the US, where it could either take direct aim at Florida or brush along the state’s coast through Friday night, the center said, warning of "potentially disastrous impacts". About 136 people were killed in Haiti, local officials said, and thousands were displaced after the storm flattened homes, uprooted trees and inundated neighborhoods earlier in the week. Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, which neighbours Haiti. As the storm passed about 40k) from th...
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