HAVANA, Sept 13 (AFP) - Hurricane Ivan lashed Cuba Monday, tearing off roofs and causing mudslides, but the ferocious eyewall of the storm appeared set to narrowly miss the western tip of the island as it hurtled toward the US coast.
As the deadly storm inflicted first damages on Cuba, President Fidel Castro said the island had nonetheless been spared the worst of Ivan's fury. "Ivan has had a friendly attitude," the communist leader said.
The storm's center of its fiercest winds appeared set to steer just clear of the island's western tip after killing at least 70 people across the Caribbean and leaving a trail of devastation.
Cuban authorities said roofs had been torn off houses and flooding damaged houses, fishing and farm installations, while mudslides cut off at least two towns.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Cuba as the eye of the storm was located just 45 kilometers (30 miles) south of the island's western tip at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), with hurricane-force winds extending 185 kilometers (115 miles) from the center.
Castro on Monday traveled to the western province of Pinar de Rio, where he personally led emergency operations, including the biggest evacuation in the country's history, in which 1.6 million people moved to safer ground, some even staying in air raid shelters.
Cuba already suffered an estimated one billion dollars in damages from Hurricane Charley last month, but Castro has insisted he would not accept any aid from the United States or any other country "that has adopted sanctions against Cuba."
Ivan, one of the fiercest Atlantic hurricanes on record, on Monday packed sustained winds of 260 kilometers (160 miles) per hour, with higher gusts.
Its projected track took it near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, and later this week toward the United States, where forecasters said it could make landfall in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana.
The power of the storm, a rare top-scale category five hurricane, could change in coming days, but in any case, "Ivan is forecast to be a major hurricane at US landfall," said Miles Stewart, a forecaster at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
Authorities in Mexico meanwhile ordered 5,000 people to evacuate islands and coastal areas along the Yucatan peninsula, and set up shelters in the tourist resort of Cancun.
Mexico was also warily eying Hurricane Javier which roared about 450 kilometers (280 miles) off its Pacific coast on Monday.
The tiny spice island of Grenada was the worst hit by Ivan, with at least 37 people killed last week, the Panamerican Health Organisation said.
As many as 90 percent of all buildings were damaged or destroyed and between 5,000 and 8,000 of the island's 100,000 inhabitants were still living in shelters, officials said.
In Jamaica, police put the death toll at 19 after powerful winds and heavy rain from Ivan tore down houses, felled trees and destroyed roads in the nation of 2.7 million.
At least one looter was shot dead and two police officers wounded as gangs of armed men ransacked homes and businesses, authorities said.
The hurricane was also blamed for five deaths in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic, three in Haiti and one in Tobago.
There were no official reports of deaths in the Cayman Islands that were hit by the hurricane on Sunday, causing extensive damage.
"The winds ripped the apartments like matchsticks, the whole island has taken a battering. Cars and trucks were floating away like toys," a reporter told Citadel Radio from Grand Cayman.
In Florida, Governor Jeb Bush has extended a state of emergency over the entire state, which is still mopping up from the ravages wrought earlier this month by Hurricane Frances and last month by Charley.
Oil giants Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco said they were evacuating workers from some oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of the hurricane's passage.
Crude oil prices rose sharply as the storm headed toward the Gulf of Mexico. The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October jumped 1.25 dollars to 41.45 dollars a barrel in London.