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Oranjestad, Aruba: Hurricane Felix gathered strength early yesterday and became a Category 2 hurricane, the US National Hurricane Centre said. It was forecast to pass just north of the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba.
The storm was upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday evening, becoming the second Atlantic hurricane of the season. It had sustained maximum winds of about 160 km/h early yesterday.
A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were in effect for Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. At 0600 GMT (10am UAE time), Felix was centred about 70km northeast of Bonaire and 230km east of Aruba, the hurricane centre said.
Felix was changing directions constantly after nightfall and wobbling, making the storm's impact hard to predict, Curacao Lt Governor Lizanne Richards-Dindial told a midnight news conference. "Felix is playing with us," she said.
On Saturday, Felix brought heavy rains and strong winds to Grenada as a tropical storm, snapping small boats loose from their moorings, temporarily knocking out local radio and TV stations and toppling utility lines. No injuries were reported.
In Aruba, about 30km off Venezuela's coast, a line of jittery residents and hotel employees snaked through a hardware store in the capital, Oranjestad, to purchase supplies.
"This kind of weather doesn't usually make it to Aruba, so people are definitely worried," store cashier Mark Werleman said.
Felix, the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was expected to continue strengthening over the next 24 hours. Forecasters said satellite images showed Felix steadily expanding in size.
Henriette moves out to sea
Along the Pacific coast of Mexico, meanwhile, authorities discontinued storm warnings as Tropical Storm Henriette moved out to sea.
Henriette dumped heavy rain on western Mexico earlier, loosening a giant boulder that smashed into a home in Acapulco, killing an adult and two children and injuring two other people.
A teenager and her two brothers were also killed when a landslide slammed into their house in a poor neighbourhood of the resort city.
With maximum sustained winds of 110 km/h, the storm was expected to become a hurricane yesterday. But forecasters put it on a path that would not threaten land until Thursday, when it could hit a remote section of the Baja California peninsula.
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