PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haiti has issued a red alert and evacuated families from tiny outlying islands as Hurricane Matthew, the strongest storm to cross the Caribbean in years, shifted its route toward the impoverished country.

Matthew is expected to make landfall in Haiti on Monday as a major storm bringing 240 kph winds and extreme rain to the southern coast, simultaneously lashing Jamaica. It will move on to Cuba early on Tuesday, the US National Hurricane Center said.

With tropical storm conditions expected to reach Haiti on Sunday night, the prime minister’s office issued the alert warning for landslides, high waves and floods. It evacuated residents by boat from small, exposed sandy islands in the south as a precaution on Saturday.

A saleswoman shows lamps to a customers while other people flock to the supermarket to take care of last minute shopping as Hurricane Matthew approaches in Kingston, Jamaica October 1, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

“We have already started evacuations,” Haitian Interior Ministry spokesman Albert Moulion said. “The national center of emergency operations has been activated.”

On Sunday, boats were prohibited from going to sea.

The slow-moving storm is forecast to dump as much as 101 cm of rain in Haiti and up to 64 cm in Jamaica, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

Matthew was about 545 km southeast of Port-Au-Prince on Sunday morning and the US National Hurricane Center ranked it at Category 4 of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Earlier it had been ranked at the top Category 5.

– Reuters