By Shurna Robbins and Alan Markoff GEORGE TOWN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Paloma strengthened into an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 hurricane on Saturday as it pounded the wealthy British Caribbean territory of the Cayman Islands and headed toward storm-battered Cuba. Businesses, schools and government offices closed down on Friday in the Cayman Islands, a major financial center, while residents shuttered their homes and visitors tried to flee as the late-season storm hurtled northward. Early on Saturday, the storm's maximum sustained winds increased to 135 miles per hour (215 km per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. "Paloma is now an extremely dangerous category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale," the Miami-based hurricane center said. The storm was expected to "pass over or near Little Cayman and Cayman Brac during the next few hours ... and be approaching the coast of central Cuba late tonight or early Sunday," it said. "I have been through this so many times that a Category 2 or 3 doesn't really bother me anymore. Anything less than a Hurricane Ivan and I am not worried at all," Paul Aiken, a Cayman businessman, said on Friday, referring to a ferocious 2004 hurricane that caused extensive damage in the territory. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 when it came ashore near New Orleans in 2005 and swamped the low-lying U.S. city, but the Cayman Islands and their solid structures are considered less vulnerable to the fierce tropical storms that churn through the Atlantic and Caribbean between June and the end of November each year. Paloma doused Honduras with heavy rains as it formed on Thursday, adding to misery in the impoverished Central American country where the United Nations estimates 70,000 people have been made homeless by recent storms. It posed no threat to U.S. oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuba, which has suffered $5 billion in damages from two hurricane strikes this year, is bracing for yet another blow. Cuban officials said they had evacuated at least 85,000 boarding school students on Friday and would soon begin moving people from flood-prone areas. By 5:30 a.m. EST (1030 GMT), Paloma was near Cayman Brac island, about 95 miles (150 km) east-northeast of Grand Cayman Island and about 175 miles (280 km) southwest of Camaguey, Cuba, and moving northeast near 7 mph (11 kph), the hurricane center said. It might strengthen a little in the coming hours, but is expected to weaken later in the day and through Sunday, the forecasters said. Rainfall totaling up to 15 inches (38 cm) was expected over parts of the Cayman Islands and its national weather service forecast waves rising up to 30 feet (9 metres), which would cause dangerous coastal storm surges. (Additional reporting by Jeff Franks, Nelson Acosta and Rosa Tania Valdes in Havana; writing by Michael Christie; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Haiti's President Rene Preval (C) visits the scene of the church school that collapsed on the outskirts of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince November 7, 2008. The ramshackle church school collapsed in a ...
