Jeanne causes chaos across Caribbean

Tropical storm Jeanne is headed for the Bahamas after rampaging through the Dominican Republic.

Jeanne, blamed for at least seven deaths, had lost strength but a few hours after being downgraded to a tropical depression when its winds dipped below 39 mph (63 kph), it strengthened again into a tropical storm.

Forecasters said it was too soon to predict if the storm would hit the United States.

The storm stalled over the Dominican Republic after coming ashore as a hurricane, with winds near 80 mph (129 kph). It raged through Puerto Rico on Wednesday, dumping up to 60 centimetres of rain, flooding hundreds of homes and downing power lines. Two people died.

The storm became better organised as it moved over the sparsely populated outer islands of the south-east Bahamas earlier today.

Brian Jarvinen at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said he couldn’t rule out Jeanne hitting Florida, which has been struck by three hurricanes since mid-August.

The storm claimed five lives in the Dominican Republic on Friday, said Juan Luis German, spokesman for the National Emergency Committee.

Two people were swept away by swollen rivers, one man was crushed by a falling palm tree, while another couldn’t reach the hospital while having a heart attack. A baby died when a landslide crushed part of her house.